


Fire and Ice

by Mithen



Series: Gardens of Wayne Manor [3]
Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-07
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark and Bruce meet again, each dealing with a different kind of crisis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Moonlight and Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [火与冰](https://archiveofourown.org/works/598636) by [Lynx219](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx219/pseuds/Lynx219)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce are each facing a different kind of crisis when they meet again on a frozen December night.

The temperature dropped abruptly as Bruce crossed the Susquehanna River, heading north. A fog bank loomed ahead and he leaned forward into it, icy mist lashing at his face, riming his hair.

He was going too fast, but he could handle it.

Ten hours ago he’d been in Washington DC. Ten hours ago he’d been an intern for the FBI: a job he’d beat out hundreds of candidates for, the youngest intern there, one of the youngest ever. Now he was going north, too fast on icy roads, his back to Washington.

Going home for the first time in two years.

He’d started the internship three months ago. He’d worked so hard to get it, impressed so many people, charmed so many interviewers. He’d learned charm in France, and how to hide his reactions in Japan, and how to say things that sounded good and gave away nothing in England. And so he had finally gotten his foot in the door. An internship like this would lead places. He’d make connections. He’d show himself a rising star and learn the ropes, and someday...

Bruce glared into the mist.

Oh, he’d learned a lot. Learned what the ratio of paperwork to fieldwork was. Learned how much brown-nosing and politicking had to get done before _anything_ was accomplished. Learned that rules and regulations were more important than people.

Today had been the final straw.

It had been nothing dramatic, nothing that anyone else would even notice. He’d been typing up a report at his desk outside the chief’s office when an agent strode through the office, shouldering through crowds and blowing papers off desks in her wake. She sat down outside the chief’s office and crossed her arms, glaring into space.

Bruce had seen her around, here and there, and she had always caught his eye. She was young, for starters--probably five or six years older than he was, rumored to be something of a prodigy. The rumors also said that she was impossible to work with, that she had “attitude.” Bruce had seen her in action, chewing out a man twice her age for failing to make an arrest. She was brusque. She was efficient. She got things done.

She was glaring at him.

Bruce looked down hastily and kept typing. She snorted, something nearly a laugh. “I’m not going to eat you, kid. No. I think it’s my turn to be chewed up and spit out.” She clasped her hands together, staring at her knuckles. “Any minute now, that door is going to swing open and Foley’s going to say ‘Get in here, girl,’ and they’re going to tell me I’m being sent down to some podunk place. Because I don’t play well with others. Too aggressive. Too ‘abrasive.’” Her lip curled in a sneer. “Damn it.”

“But you were responsible for catching that Salt Lake City sniper last month. They can’t just--”

“--Oh, they can. They’ve got an image of what the perfect FBI agent is and believe me, I don’t even come close.” She looked at Bruce, her eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry, kid. You’ll do fine here. You’ve got the right look. As long as you don't rock the boat or make your bosses look dumb, you'll fit right in. But someone like me--hell, I’ve had to work six times harder and be ten times better than folks like you to get anywhere at all.” She was staring into space, her eyes hard. “And now it's come to this. The only crimes that get solved around here are missing paper clips. They wouldn't know a credible threat if it bit their pasty asses. But I'll show them a credible threat someday.” She was speaking to herself now, as if Bruce had ceased to exist. "Someday."

The door opened and Chief Foley’s voice snapped, “Waller! Get in here, girl.”

Agent Waller came crisply to her feet and went into the Chief’s office without another look at Bruce. She left a sense of space, of absence, in her wake.

Bruce looked out across the office, at people typing reports, filing paperwork, playing office politics. This wasn’t something they were doing in preparation for their real job. This _was_ their real job. This was what most of them spent their days doing, being sent from city to city by the Bureau to shuffle papers where needed. That was their lives.

Bruce turned back to his report and finished typing it. Then he stacked his paperwork neatly on his desk, picked up his bag, and walked out of the building. He went to his Spartan apartment and put everything he had into a duffel bag, walked down the street and bought a motorcycle and a leather jacket, and ten minutes later was on his way north.

Back to Gotham.

Bruce leaned into a turn, enjoying the growl of the motor. The fog was gone now, replaced by bitter cold. There must have been an ice storm recently; the trees gleamed in the moonlight and there was an extra sheen to the snow-covered ground. To his right the island of Gotham glimmered across the bay. He crossed the Mooney Bridge into Bristol and was soon at the gates of the Manor.

He got off his bike and entered the code to open the gates, then decided to walk his bike up the driveway. It was well after midnight, and he didn’t want to wake anyone up. He’d slip in and crash on the sofa, and surprise Alfred in the morning.

When he rounded the corner and saw the familiar lines of the Manor looming in the moonlit darkness, he had to stop for a second and wait for a wave of pained nostalgia to pass over him. It had been so long, but everything looked exactly the same.

Or wait--not exactly. On the south side of the house he could see the outlines of a hedge that hadn’t been there before, walling in what had to be the moon garden Mrs. Kent had been planning the last time he left.

He left the bike in the driveway and walked toward it, his hands stiff and cold in their black leather gloves, his face chilled and chapped.

A gap in the dark hedge was marked with a wrought-iron gate; he pushed it open and went in.

The garden was dead, of course, everything bare and covered with snow, a fresh layer of ice glazing the twigs and fir needles. The snow blazed in the moonlight like silver, almost ultraviolet-bright. The paths were crusted with snow that squeaked and crunched under Bruce’s boots as he walked them. The air was utterly still, so cold it burned in his lungs.

He rounded a corner and found himself in what must be the heart of the garden. The marble statue of the dancing angel and demon shone in the moonlight, covered with ice. Bruce walked around the statue, entranced anew at the expressions on the marble faces. They were looking at each other as if they shared a secret, a serene smile on the angel’s face and a mischievous grin on the demon’s.

Bruce was still staring at them when he heard a faint _click_. “Who’s there?” called a voice, and then a figure stepped into the heart of the garden.

It took Bruce a moment to recognize Clark: in the silver light he seemed to be dressed entirely in white, his eyes dark in a pale face.

They stared at each other as if caught in ice, or frozen in marble, unmoving.

**: : :**

_”No!_ ” The cry continued to echo in his mind, but the bedroom was still and silent. Clark threw off the stifling covers, letting the cold air chill his shaking limbs. The nightmare again. The dream where his skin split and something too horrible to imagine stepped out of him, shrugging off _Clark_ like a discarded coat, something that Clark’s mind couldn’t process, shied away from with shrieking denial--

He grabbed the back of his chair and held on as a wave of nausea and stark, irrational horror washed over him. _No, no, no,_ his mind gibbered.

There was a snapping noise.

He opened his eyes and found the back of the chair snapped in two, the sturdy maple reduced to jagged splinters. _Not again, no_.

The nightmares were happening more often now, almost every week. And in their wake... _things_ happened.

Terrible things.

At first it was small things. A bent spoon. Hearing his mother humming to herself on the other side of the grounds. Things he could mostly ignore.

But then there was the night he woke up from the nightmare and it was as if the whole house had been turned to glass--he could see through the walls, off into the distance, with a terrifying and impossible clarity. The whole world unpeeled like an onion, layers of sight, unbearable. For a bare instant he had seen molecules and galaxies simultaneously, a scope that threatened to shatter him. He had clamped his hands over his eyes and shuddered, wracked with nausea, until the agonizing humming energy had stopped vibrating along his nerves and the walls of his bedroom re-solidified into the same banal forms as before.

Clark, however, had not been the same.

There was something terribly wrong with him.

He shoved the shattered chair, the evidence of his abnormality, into the closet. Standing in the middle of the room, gulping deep breaths of air, he suddenly felt closed in, claustrophobic. Shaking, he slipped through the house and out the door, not even bothering to change out of his sky-blue pajamas or put on slippers. He needed to get _out_.

The air was bitterly cold. Gotham was having its coldest winter in a century. He knew that. But as he walked across the snow-covered lawn, he felt no cold. The snow was like feathers to his bare feet, the ice like glass that scraped him without any pain.

_What was happening to him?_

A sound came to him: a crunching noise, like boots on snow. And underneath that the faint sigh of breathing, and the soft and steady pulse of a heartbeat. Things Clark couldn’t, _shouldn’t_ hear.

He walked toward them as though drawn, dazzled in the strange silver light that shone everywhere around him.

He entered the moon garden, letting the gate click shut behind him. “Who’s there?” he said, moving inward.

At the center of the garden, on the far side of the angel statue, stood a dark figure. His eyes glinted almost silver in the moonlight, but the rest was like shadows. Clark stared, drunk on moonlight and power that still resounded through his body, unable to fasten any words to what he saw. _Beautiful_ was too weak for the sharp lines of the face, _handsome_ too austere for the curve of the mouth.

 _Lonely_ was too simple for the complexity of the eyes.

Clark found at last a word that fit.

“Bruce?” he whispered. The name felt almost alien in his mouth, as if it meant far more than could be expressed in any language. “Bruce?”


	2. Frozen Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Clark reconnect while Clark struggles to deal with his burgeoning powers.

_”Clark_?” Bruce’s voice was sharp and concerned. “What are you doing out here and--God, your feet!”

Clark looked down at his bare feet sticking out of the pajama bottoms. “It’s not so cold,” he said.

“Are you _crazy_? It’s below zero!” Bruce grabbed his elbow. “Clark, you must be sleepwalking.”

“Maybe I am,” Clark agreed. It was easier than trying to explain that he couldn’t feel the cold, that he could snap a metal rake like a toothpick, that he could hear Bruce’s heartbeat, jagged and fast. He felt unreal and out of sync, like he was resonating at a different frequency than everything around him. But Bruce’s hand on his arm was solid and real. He focused on that and felt some of the strange and unnerving energy trickle out of him.

He shuddered in relief, and Bruce started to pull him toward the Manor. “We’re getting you inside,” Bruce muttered.

The Manor was warmer than the outside, but far from cozy. Bruce hastily piled some logs on the fireplace and lit them. “Sit down,” he commanded as he struck the match, and Clark sank onto the sofa, suddenly sleepy. Was this all a dream? He’d imagined Bruce coming home so many times, but had never pictured it like this.

“What’s the meaning of--oh!” Alfred’s voice broke off in shock. Clark looked up to see him standing in the doorway in a heavy robe and slippers, his glare transmuted into pure surprise at the sight of Bruce bent over the fireplace.

Bruce stood up, and Clark saw a sudden hesitance, almost a shyness, cross his face. “I’m sorry, Alfred.” He gestured toward the fireplace. “It was cold...I hope you don’t mind.”

“My dear boy,” Alfred said, then stopped, shaking his head, as close to bewildered as Clark had ever seen him. “It is your house, after all. And it is always a pleasure to see you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Bruce said. There was a brief moment of silence, not awkward but resonant, and then Alfred cleared his throat.

“Is Master Clark all right?” he said.

Bruce looked over at Clark. “He was sleepwalking or something,” he said. “I found him in the moon garden like this.”

“I had a nightmare,” Clark said. He yawned suddenly, without any warning. “I’m sorry.”

Bruce pushed his shoulder backwards onto the sofa. “Get some sleep,” he said. “You can stay here for now, we’ll call your mother early in the morning and tell her you’re fine.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Clark said stubbornly, even as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

“You’re half-asleep already.” Bruce’s voice was amused. It was lower than Clark remembered, with a husky edge to it that hadn’t been there before.

“What if this is all a dream? What if you’re not here when I wake up?”

Bruce reached out and laced his fingers through Clark’s. “I’ll be here in the morning. I promise.”

Bruce’s promise was good enough for Clark. He fell asleep with Bruce’s fingers still intertwined with his.

**: : :**

Clark came awake with a shock to the smell of bacon and bright hard sunlight. He sat up and a quilt slid onto the floor. He folded it carefully, listening to the sounds of the house. He couldn’t hear anything more than normal; the spell of the night before seemed to be over. But it would be back, he thought with a shudder. He knew it.

“Master Clark, I see you’re up.” Alfred was in the doorway, holding a blue robe. “Breakfast is ready in the morning room.”

Clark took the robe with a mumbled thanks. It was dark blue silk, and as he shrugged it on he realized it must have belonged to Bruce. The thought suddenly brought back a startlingly vivid image from the night before: a figure in the moonlight, dark against the snow. “Is Bruce really home?”

“He is indeed, Master Clark. He woke early and went to tell your mother where you were.” Alfred seemed full of energy as he bustled around, re-folding the quilt and placing it gently on the sofa. A man with a renewed mission.

The back door swung open with a bang and Clark could hear boots being stamped. “I hope there’s some bacon left,” Bruce’s voice came from the hall.

“A full rasher, sir.”

Bruce came into the living room, rubbing his hands together, his cheeks red with cold. He stopped and smiled when he saw Clark, ducking his head slightly. “Your mother sent some clothes and shoes up for you. They’re in the hall, you can change after breakfast. I don’t think she was particularly glad to see me,” he added as they went into the morning room and sat down.

“Huh?” Clark paused as he shook out his napkin. “Why wouldn’t she be glad to see you?”

“Oh, you know.” Bruce looked down at his plate, reached out and rubbed his thumb along the little crest of arms embossed on it. “I might spirit you away into some crazy adventure. Whisk you off to France with me.”

“Hmm,” Clark said neutrally around a piece of orange. No need to mention he’d spun elaborate plans of saving enough money to go to Paris or Oxford or wherever the latest postcard had been from. How many times he’d imagined walking the streets of some European city and seeing Bruce, rapt in a book or staring into a shop window. How Bruce would turn when Clark called his name, his face lighting up from preoccupied into joyful, how he would hurry to Clark’s side and take his hands and...and...

The fantasies had always ended about there, fading out into a misty, confused jumble of emotions--and the realization that he was never going to make enough money to fly to Europe.

“Ma’s a little protective of me,” he said instead.

“I can understand that,” Bruce said, stuffing most of a danish into his mouth so it sounded more like “I c'nunnersnnat.”

 _”Master Bruce,”_ exclaimed Alfred. “Did you learn those table manners in Paris?”

“Sorry, Alfred,” Bruce said, starting to wipe his mouth with his sleeve--then stopping and using the napkin with more grace. “It’s just good to be home and be myself again, you know?”

“Being yourself does not have to mean being crude and ill-mannered,” Alfred sniffed. Bruce grinned unrepentantly, but Clark noticed his table manners improved dramatically.

“The last postcard we got was from Budapest,” said Clark. “How’d you end up back here?”

“Oh, I was knocking around Eastern Europe for a while after I finished up some architecture classes in Milan. Budapest, Vienna, Prague--my God, Clark, you would not believe how beautiful Prague is. We’ll have to go there someday together.” He took another bite of bacon while Clark struggled against a sudden and inexplicable blush, looking down at his napkin. “Um, and after that I interviewed with an FBI agent and got an internship with them in Washington. I’ve been there for three months now, but I...I left. I guess I wasn’t cut out for it.” He looked up again and smiled brightly, falsely. “So I’ve washed out again and come skulking home to Gotham.”

“Don’t speak nonsense,” Alfred chided, refilling Bruce’s glass of orange juice. “You are not skulking. You are reflecting and refocusing.”

“But I’m _good_ at skulking,” Bruce mumbled under his breath. He looked back at Clark. “Enough about me, how’ve you been? Have you been writing?”

As Clark opened his mouth to answer, Alfred’s foot caught on the edge of the carpet and the pitcher of orange juice slipped from his hands. Clark felt alarm spike through him--

And then time slowed down.

Not in the metaphorical sense people usually meant it; the world literally shifted into slow motion. The pitcher hovered in mid-air, moving downward more slowly than a falling feather. Alfred’s eyes were just starting to widen. Bruce was rising from his seat, so gradually, as if moving through water, too far away to do anything.

The world was silent.

Clark sat, staring around him. He had caused this, he knew it with a bedrock certainty, caused the whole world to congeal and move at a different pace. He was alone in a soundless world, the only one able to move.

What if he was stuck like this forever?

Ignoring the stab of fear that went through him at the thought, he stood and cradled his hands under the falling pitcher. Willing his heart to stop hammering, he closed his eyes and thought a desperate plea, unformed and inchoate: _Please..._

Something _shifted_ in his head, and sound broke in on him once more. The pitcher took on weight and velocity again and fell into his hands.

“Oh,” said Alfred as Clark handed him the pitcher. “Thank you, Master Clark. That was close.”

“Good save, Clark,” Bruce agreed, sitting back down.

Clark was shaking. He felt sick. He wanted to cling to time like an old friend: _Never leave me again._

“You okay?” asked Bruce as if nothing had happened. Nothing had, as far as he knew. A pitcher had slipped, and Clark had jumped up and caught it.

“I’m fine,” Clark managed. He took a long drink of water. He could do it again, was the worst part. He could feel the place in his mind where he had made everything slow down, and he knew he could do it again.

His thoughts shied away from the idea. No. He was just Clark Kent. He wasn’t stronger than other people. He wasn’t able to move faster than thought. No.

“So how _have_ you been?”

Clark blinked at Bruce. The original question seemed a thousand years ago. “I’m still doing some writing. Nothing too dramatic.” A laugh lodged somewhere in his throat, tasting of hysteria. He choked it down. “Nothing too dramatic.”

**: : :**

The path to the Kent bungalow was well-shoveled and smooth with packed snow. The air was still, with a charged atmosphere that promised even more snowfall. Martha Kent opened the door when Bruce knocked, her expression welcoming--but not too welcoming. “Come in,” she said, and Bruce stepped over the threshold into the warmth and clutter of Clark’s home.

“I forgot to mention I’d seen the moon garden when I came by yesterday,” Bruce said. “It looks beautiful.”

Martha was drying her hands on her apron. “Thank you,” she said, her expression thawing somewhat. “I’d like to think your mother would have been pleased with it. It’s a shame it’s all buried in snow right now. Perhaps you’ll be here to see it in the spring?”

“I hope so,” said Bruce. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to do now that he’d given up his most cherished dream. It was strange how he didn’t feel upset or disappointed by it. Instead he felt...free. Like those plans had been tying him down, distracting from what he really needed to do.

Now he just needed to figure out what that was.

The answer was here in Gotham, he felt that deep inside him. Gotham would tell him what he needed to do next, he just had to be still enough to hear her voice.

“Clark!” called Martha. “Bruce is here.”

Clark emerged from his bedroom. He looked tired and worried, but a smile lit up his face when he saw Bruce.

“So how long will you be in town?” Martha asked as Clark started to make some cocoa.

“I...don’t know,” Bruce said. “A few weeks at least. Maybe longer.”

“Oh, then you’ll be around for Christmas,” Martha said. “My goodness, that will be the first time in...” She paused, her voice faltering. “Have you been here at Christmas since...?”

“Oh.” Bruce hadn’t even considered that. Christmas had generally become a day he stayed in and studied fiercely, studied something that had nothing at all to do with families or holidays or grief. “Yes. It’s been...eight years since I’ve been here at Christmas.”

He stirred the mug of cocoa Clark gave him with intensity, watching the marshmallows spiral and sink, and looked up just in time to catch the tail end of Clark’s imploring look to his mother. Martha cleared her throat. “Would you like to have Christmas with us, here? Mr. Pennyworth would be welcome as well, of course,” she added before he could say anything. “He usually comes over for dessert that day anyway.”

“He always brings figgy pudding,” Clark put in. “It’s fantastic.”

“I know we don’t have much space here, but it would be such a pleasure to have you,” Martha went on. “Please consider it.”

Bruce thought about the possibility of sitting in a huge empty mansion by himself, knowing the Kents were celebrating so near by. He could leave town for the day, but... “It would be an honor. Thank you.”

Martha Kent’s delighted smile was entirely unfeigned, while Clark’s was blinding. “Wonderful! Maybe we’ll be able to finish off the leftover turkey a little faster this year--not that Clark leaves much, usually.”

As Clark laughed a little sheepishly, Bruce remembered the reason he’d come in the first place and held up the flyer he’d brought with him. “Clark, I meant to ask. I’m going to this lecture series--it’s team taught by a biology and physics professor at Hudson, meets three nights a week for three weeks. Would you like to come?”

He’d kind of expected Clark to roll his eyes, but Clark looked at the flyer with interest. “Sure, it looks fascinating,” he said.

“Really?” Bruce couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice, and Clark flashed him a smile.

“Yeah, really. I’m in AP physics this year, it’s one of my favorites. And I’m thinking of attending Hudson, so it’d be great to see a real class there.”

Martha Kent took the flyer from Clark and scanned it intently, as if checking for secret threats. “It does look interesting,” she admitted, handing it back to Bruce. “What day is the holiday ball you’re taking Roxanne to?”

Clark made a mournful sound. “ _She_ asked _me,_ Mom, and it was just because she couldn’t find anyone else to go with. We’re just friends,” he added, a little plaintively. “She says I’m ‘sweet, but _totally boring_.’ Anyway, this wouldn’t interfere.” He looked at the flyer again and snorted, shooting a glance at Bruce. “Seriously? This is the biologist’s name?” At Bruce’s puzzled look, he waved the flyer in the air between them. “ _Cryogenics and Cryobiology_ with Dr. Victor _Fries?”_

“I’m sure the terms aren’t etymologically related,” Bruce said, then wanted to kick himself at the stiff, almost prissy tone. But Clark just grinned.

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “In fact, it’s totally _cool._

Ow,” he added as Bruce punched his arm lightly.

**: : :**

Dr. Kelvin was discussing some fine point of cryogenics, tracing some complicated equations on the board. Bruce had come to the lecture series because of Dr. Fries, who was a world-renowned cryobiologist, but Dr. Kelvin was a pleasant surprise. She was much younger than her colleague, in her first year as a professor at Hudson, and her slight frame and soft aureole of brown hair gave her a waifish look. But when she opened her mouth and started talking about the possibilities of creating a superfluid energy source from helium-4 cooled to a few millikelvins above absolute zero, Bruce was entirely enthralled.

Beside him, Clark raised his hand.

“Yes?” Dr. Kelvin said, gesturing at him, unfazed by the interruption.

“But wouldn’t you need to lower the enthalpy in the system to achieve superfluidity?” Clark asked.

Dr. Kelvin beamed at Clark. “Excellent question. That’s exactly the point of the next part of my lecture,” she said, turning back to the board.

As she started to sketch a diagram, Bruce poked Clark. “I thought you wanted to be a journalist, not a physicist,” he whispered.

“A good journalist knows a little about everything,” Clark whispered back, grinning.

“Studying superfluid helium seems more than a _little_ ,” Bruce said under his breath. Kelvin shot him a half-laughing glare and he fell silent.

Clark’s pencil shifted to a corner of his notes. _You seem to know this stuff too,_ he jotted in a neat hand.

 _A good...whatever I’m going to be...knows a little about everything too_ , Bruce wrote on his own notes. He saw Clark glance over at his notebook and the corner of his mouth tilt upward.

 _No you won’t_ , Clark wrote, with one sharp underline.

Bruce doodled a question mark in his margins, looking at Clark out of the corner of his eye. He caught a glint of blue eyes creased with laughter, and Clark wrote under his statement: _I know you. You’ll know a lot about everything._

Bruce snorted and shook his head, focusing intently on his notes rather than look over at Clark’s and risk getting the full impact of his smile. _I know you._

After explaining further, Dr. Kelvin handed the floor over to Dr. Victor Fries. Bruce was surprised to find that the biologist was a more interesting lecturer than he’d expected: all the descriptions he’d heard had indicated a man too wrapped up in theory to care about the people he was teaching. But he was engaging and involved, making eye contact, answering questions readily and without dismissing the questioner. Bruce was puzzled by the discrepancy--until Fries finished up an example with a small, complicated pun and chuckled dryly, glancing over at Dr. Kelvin.

Bruce saw the look that passed between them, the way Kelvin beamed up at him, the way Fries squared his shoulders under her gaze, and felt he had solved the mystery.

He wasn’t sure if it was common knowledge that Victor Fries and Nora Kelvin were in love, but it seemed to have done wonders for the man’s teaching ability.


	3. Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce notices something is amiss with Victor Fries.  He notices something is amiss with Clark, too, but he doesn't quite guess what.

A few flakes of snow were spiraling downward out of a mostly clear sky as Clark and Bruce left the Hudson University station. Bruce shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket and shivered as the frigid air slipped under his collar. Clark was staring up at the stars; he slipped on the curb and almost fell, and Bruce grabbed at his arm. “Hey, Clark, pay attention.”

“I am,” Clark said absently, still looking up. “What do you think radio waves look like?”

“Humans can’t see radio waves,” Bruce said. They were almost late to the lecture.

“I know.” Clark blinked at Bruce. “I think they’d be colors no human has ever seen, like patterns of thought. Or madness, I guess.” He waved a hand in the air between them, vaguely. “They’d be everywhere, like a fractal fog. Squirming.”

Bruce realized he still had hold of Clark’s arm. He shook it slightly. “That’s really interesting, but we have to get to this lecture.”

Clark scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Tonight Victor Fries was lecturing about therapeutic hypothermia in heart surgery. “If we chill the heart, the patient is much more likely to survive major trauma.” As he sketched the process on the board, Bruce found himself frowning. Something about Fries seemed to be...off. His handwriting was jerky and scribbly compared to the precise letters of the last two lectures. He was chewing on his lower lip and glancing over at Nora Kelvin more often than he usually did. His notes rattled slightly as he held them. In short, he showed all the signs of a man under intense stress.

Bruce glanced at Kelvin, who seemed as serene as always. There didn’t seem to be any tension between the two of them, and yet whatever Fries was nervous about seemed related to her, to judge from the way his eyes kept flicking to her.

It was a mystery, and Bruce could never resist a mystery.

Clark had some questions after the lecture, and Bruce accompanied him up to the podium. Clark seemed to have shrugged off his strange mood, and his questions to Dr. Kelvin were as detailed and insightful as usual. Kelvin answered him cheerfully--she seemed to enjoy Clark’s questions--and Bruce was free to study the fidgeting Victor Fries.

The biologist was going through his papers with fingers that seemed to be trembling slightly. “Nor--Dr. Kelvin, we really should be going,” he said irritably, although his irritation didn’t seem to be directed at her. As he scooped up his notes, a few pieces of paper fluttered to the ground. Bruce leaned down to pick them up and hand them back, and Fries snatched them from him, stuffing them into a folder.

“Thank you, Dr. Kelvin,” said Clark.

“Always a pleasure, Mr. Kent,” she smiled.

As they got back on the train, Clark broke off from his enthusiastic description of cryosurgery to whack Bruce lightly on the arm. “Now you’re the one daydreaming,” he said.

“Hmmm? Yes, I guess I am,” Bruce said. _Kadyrov._ Underlined twice. Fries hadn’t lectured about any Kadyrov, and there was only one Bruce knew of: Zelimkhan Kadyrov, the boss of the Chechen Mafia in Gotham. Brutal, ruthless, and brilliant, Kadyrov had established a near-stranglehold on various warring factions of the Gotham underworld in the past few years.

Why would a cryobiologist have the name of a mob boss? None of the answers Bruce could come up with were good ones.

**: : :**

They’d gotten in the habit of coming home from the lectures and studying together a bit--Clark doing his homework and Bruce studying whatever idea had his fancy that night. Tonight it was potter wasps; before that it was ecosystem engineering, lighthouses of the East Coast, and the French perfume industry, in that order. “You’re going to finish up the Gotham library at this rate,” Clark said as he opened his history textbook.

“Unlikely,” Bruce said, taking a sip of mulled cider and picking up his own book. In moments, he was deeply absorbed in some esoteric discussion of wasp taxonomy. Clark watched as he mouthed some of the genera, a faint subvocalization Clark shouldn’t be able to hear, but could: _Raphiglossa. Eumenidiopsis. Omicrabulus._ The words sounded exotic, almost alien on Bruce’s lips; Clark could hear the way his tongue shifted to caress the dead language. He was smiling, very faintly, enraptured by thoraxes and mandibles, antennae and wings. Clark bent over his own book--they were up to the French and Indian wars--but he couldn’t seem to concentrate on the words. The world buzzed and bloomed in confusion all around him: he’d finally managed to tune out the radio waves obscuring his vision, but the everything kept shifting into odd focus. Bruce was a brilliant spot of light in the infrared spectrum, a ghostly glow in ultraviolet. Clark could hear the faint scrape of his fingertips across the paper, the whisper of blood in his veins. From across the room he could smell Bruce’s skin, the faint touch of sweat and soap, and a low, humming scent like ambergris underneath it all that was entirely his own. Clark took a deep breath, trying to stabilize himself, but it only seemed to bring the scent even nearer, as though he were close enough to nuzzle the nape of Bruce’s neck, bent over his book. His skin would taste like salt and musk and things Clark had never tasted before...

Clark closed his eyes and tried to tune out the overwhelming input, tried to curb his galloping senses that filled him with a strange sense of something imminent, like a wave coming to a crest--

“You okay?”

Clark was relieved to find that when he opened his eyes his vision was normal, that Bruce wasn’t transparent or glowing, but solid and real. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice sounding a little faint in his own ears. There didn’t seem to be any way to explain that he’d been overwhelmed by smelling his friend. Just thinking it made heat gather at the tips of his ears.

Bruce grinned and plunked down next to Clark on the floor. “You’re worried about this date, aren’t you?”

“Date?” Clark honestly couldn’t place what Bruce was talking about, but Bruce seemed to take it for coyness.

“You know, with this Roxanne, the holiday ball?”

“Roxy? She’s just a friend,” Clark said. “It’s not really a date.”

Bruce shook his head. “Have you kissed her yet?”

“Have I--” The heat in his ears flooded to the rest of his face. “No, I haven’t--I mean I’ve never--”

“You’ve never kissed her?”

“I’ve never--” Clark broke off before he could sound even more foolish, but Bruce’s knowing grin slipped into something more honestly surprised.

“You don’t mean you’ve never kissed a girl?” At the look on Clark’s face, his eyebrows went up. “Well, no wonder you’re nervous.”

“I’m not--” Clark broke off at the thought that it might be better to let Bruce think that was the reason. That would explain a lot of his behavior recently. “Well, maybe.” It seemed unlikely Roxy would kiss him, but now that he considered the possibility, it was a rather nervewracking thought. "I've kissed my mother," he said dubiously.

Bruce made an exasperated noise. "You'd better never kiss a girl like you'd kiss your mother. That's just about the biggest turn-off ever."

Clark snorted. “You sound like quite the Casanova.”

“Well...” Bruce looked, for some reason, a little embarrassed. “I’ve had some experience, I guess.”

“It doesn’t seem that easy,” Clark said.

“It’s just putting your lips together and...well, you know,” Bruce said, waving his hands vaguely.

“Not really, no. It’s not exactly something you can learn about in a book,” Clark noted. He should probably be mortified, but instead he was getting a perverse satisfaction from seeing Bruce floundering in his explanation. “Turn head to a twenty degree angle, then apply three pounds per square inch of pressure to partner’s lips with your own--tongue insertion optional?”

“Kissing is an art, not a science,” Bruce said almost primly, and Clark couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m doomed,” Clark announced in tones of deepest theatrical despair. “Roxy will laugh at me and I’ll be exposed before the entire world as the World’s Worst Kisser, a failure in the ancient art of liplocking, shunned by all polite society for eternity--”

“--Look, it’s no big deal,” Bruce broke in. There was a flush of annoyance staining his cheeks. “I could show you how,” he said in a sudden rush.

“What, demonstrate with action figures?” Clark glanced around the room. “Gray Ghost and Flash Gordon to the rescue!”

“Don’t be silly.” Bruce seemed to have regained his composure somewhat, but his color was still high. “You just need some practice so you won’t be nervous when it’s a _real_ kiss.”

“Practice with--” Clark broke off. “--With you?”

Bruce shrugged and nodded at the same time. “It wouldn’t be a _real_ kiss,” he said. “So you could get used to it.”

There was a pause while Clark tried to decide if he was joking. If this was a joke, Clark was supposed to laugh it off and tell Bruce not to be gross. If it wasn’t--Clark responded before he could look too closely at his reaction to that thought. “I guess it couldn’t hurt?”

“All right then.” Bruce cracked his knuckles dramatically. He reached out and touched the side of Clark’s face, turning his head toward him. “Generally you have to look at the person you’re going to kiss,” he noted.

“I’m learning _so much_ already, sensei,” Clark said with mock-servility, and Bruce turned the touch into a very light slap.

“Pay attention, grasshopper,” he chided. He shifted his weight forward, taking Clark’s arm and putting it loosely around him. “Both arms. I'm your beauteous Roxanne, so you have to hold me in your arms.”

Dutifully, Clark put both arms around Bruce, resting them on his shoulder blades. The muscles were tense under his hands, strangely at odds with the nonchalance of Bruce’s expression. “What now?” The air between them seemed to be buzzing, and Clark felt like every nerve in his body was jangling, electrified.

“Now you just...” Bruce leaned forward slowly. His eyes were still open but drifting slightly closed, each eyelash distinct, a veil of darkness over silver-blue. Closer, and then closer still, so slowly that Clark would have thought he’d shifted the world to slow motion again except for the ticking of the clock on the wall. “You just--”

The faint puff of his breath touched Clark’s lips and Clark’s couldn’t help it, he burst out laughing, as if his jangled nerves had exploded into anxious giggles. Bruce pulled back with a snicker of his own, rolling his eyes, his face very pink. “Okay, okay, this is stupid,” he said between gasps of laughter. “I’m sorry, it was--”

“--No!” Clark caught at Bruce’s sleeve as he started to disentangle himself, and Bruce froze. “I mean, it’s okay, I promise not to laugh again. Promise.” Bruce looked dubious, and Clark added hastily, “Maybe it’s better not to be so slow, like--” He darted his head forward and pressed his lips to Bruce’s, then back. “There, like that.”

He’d just kissed Bruce. The thought seemed to loom like an iceberg in his mind, terrifying enough on the surface alone, and with depths that he couldn’t even begin to see yet. He’d just kissed Bruce, and it had been--

Been--

He couldn’t remember, it had gone by so fast, and he’d been distracted with terror and trying not to laugh. He had only a vague impression of warm, dry skin.

Bruce was shaking his head. “Okay, _that_ was a motherly kiss. No good. You’re not going to kiss Roxy like _that_ \--I mean, even if it had _counted_ , which it doesn’t, that was only a peck.”

“Well, I have to start somewhere. And at least I didn’t laugh this time.”

“True.” Bruce’s eyes were teasing, an effect that was particularly distracting when he was so close and...and actually in Clark’s arms. “Not giggling when kissing is a big step.” He frowned, mock-severe. “Now you have to practice making it last a little longer. And no laughing.”

Without any extra warning, he shifted in Clark’s arms and brought his mouth to Clark’s again.

Clark went totally still, trying this time to pay attention and remember every detail. Bruce’s lips were warm and a little bit chapped. The tip of his nose was cold. His hand had tightened on Clark’s back, pulling at the fabric slightly. He breathed in through his nose, and his chest rose against Clark’s. Neither one of them moved.

After a moment Clark slitted his eyes slightly open and found Bruce looking at him from about a centimeter away. They sprang apart like depolarized magnets. “Better?” asked Clark, struggling to keep his voice steady while his thoughts careened like shooting stars in every direction. He’d kissed Bruce. Bruce kissed him. Not a real kiss. His mouth. Not a real kiss.

“Somewhat better.” Bruce’s voice was clinical. He took a deep breath that seemed to tremble slightly--it was apparently hard to breathe well while kissing, as Clark felt breathless too. “But you have to...it has to be _softer_.”

“Softer?”

“Like...a kiss is more than just putting your mouths together. An Italian friend of mine said that kissing is...melting into someone, blending your souls for a moment.” Clark arched a dubious eyebrow and Bruce laughed, a little weakly. “I know, it’s bullshit, but a kiss is...okay, promise not to laugh.” Clark nodded. “It’s like this.”

He put his mouth to Clark’s again. He kept his eyes open, so Clark did too, although it was extremely strange to be so close to him. Their lips were touching like before, warm and dry, and then--

\--Then Bruce tilted his head a little and his mouth _shifted_ under Clark’s, going soft and strangely, gently demanding, and the world seemed to dissolve into a rush of sensation. Clark realized his eyes were closed, he didn’t remember closing them, Bruce’s mouth was warm and tasted slightly of cinnamon and apples and the lower lip was so full and soft and Clark sucked at it gently and felt like he was going to die when Bruce made a tiny sound in his throat. He was going to die of whatever he was feeling. Not a real kiss.

Bruce broke away, but didn’t pull back far. He was breathing heavily. “Better,” he muttered. “Better.”

“Tell me what else I need to know.” Clark heard his own voice with a faint surprise at how demanding he sounded, greedy and hopeful. “What I need to know if I kiss Roxy,” he added to clarify, as if the words were a wall he could rest against, dizzy and winded and confused. “Show me.”

Bruce’s eyes were mostly closed. He shook his head as if he were trying to clear it. The room seemed hot, disorienting. “French kiss,” he murmured. “Like this.”

This time the kiss started soft and warm and melting, their mouths fitting together without hesitation. And then Bruce’s tongue brushed at Clark’s lower lip, a tiny tease, a little stroke of fire.

Heat and light seemed to spark in Clark’s head. He responded the same way, and Bruce’s lips parted, opening to Clark’s tongue, trembling heat engulfing him.

His tongue was inside Bruce’s mouth.

He was inside Bruce.

The thought seemed to obliterate him, to dissolve him into white noise and flame, everything converging on that impossible point of contact where Bruce was now licking at him, opening his mouth in turn, and Clark was opened up, all of him opened up and aching.

Bruce was grabbing at his hair, dragging him closer, and they fell over onto the floor together, Bruce on his back, Clark beside him. With just one quick move he could be on top of Bruce, his whole body pressed up against him, and for a moment a strident _need_ for contact and friction almost overcame his common sense.

Then he dragged himself back to himself. This was a practice kiss. Bruce was acting the part of Roxanne, and his questing tongue was part of that, his hands in Clark’s hair were part of that. It was all pretend.

Clark’s thoughts shied away from his very real response to the pretense.

 _This is Roxy,_ he reminded himself. _This warmth and this desire is for her._ He could bring himself to believe it, somehow. At least for now.

“Oh God,” Bruce murmured against his mouth, “Clark.”

Clark whispered back, trying to match that delirious tone, trying to convince himself of it:

“Oh, Roxy.”

Bruce pulled back so fast the back of his head hit the floor. For an instant he just stared at Clark, looking almost confused.

Then he smiled, a lopsided grin.

“Much better,” he said briskly, sitting up and shaking off the embrace. “Roxy will be impressed.”

Clark’s heart was still pounding, but Bruce’s matter-of-fact manner was strangely reassuring. He wouldn’t be so businesslike if he had noticed--noticed that Clark was getting a little too carried away. Clark was safe. “I owe it all to you,” Clark said, trying to match his tone. Practice. Not a real kiss. “How can I ever repay you?”

Bruce raised a hand as if to give him a comradely punch to the shoulder. Then the gesture faltered and he turned it into a careless wave. “Name your firstborn after me or something.”

“What if it’s a girl?”

“Brucette is a perfectly fine name,” Bruce said loftily.

“I prefer Brucella.” The teasing was oddly difficult, painful like setting a broken bone back in the right place, but it was better than the strange tumultuous way he’d been feeling before.

Bruce picked up his wasp book once more. “Well, it was my--it was my pleasure,” he said. “Anything to help a friend in need.”

They went back to studying--or rather, Bruce went back to studying and Clark went back to staring blankly at his history book, trying to convince himself that his unruly physical reactions were to the idea of kissing Roxy, not to the soft sounds Bruce had made, or the warmth of his body, or the feel of his tongue...

Clark tried, and by the time he was back home and trying to fall asleep, he’d half-convinced himself that the taste of Bruce’s mouth and the sound of his voice saying Clark’s name weren’t what had left him feeling half-mad with wanting. As he tossed and turned and felt delicious dreams lurking at the edges of his consciousness, he was half-convinced of it.

But only half.


	4. Hothouse Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Bruce investigates Fries's possible ties to the Chechen mafia, Clark confronts his mother about his fears.

Broken and boarded-up windows gaped at Bruce Wayne as he hunched his shoulders against the cold and went deeper into the East Side of Gotham. He passed people in cardboard boxes, people huddled around a burning barrel who cast him sidelong looks.

Bruce went further into the area of Gotham controlled by the Chechen Mafia.

It wasn't the worst area in town--that was the crumbling remnants of the North End, where the police rarely ventured at all. But it wasn't an area he wanted to bring Clark to, so he was here alone.

Clark.

Bruce felt a frisson crawl up his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. He'd studied the art of seduction in Europe, back when he still harbored the delusion that he was going to become some kind of suave international spy. He'd kissed a lot of men and women, but it had always been an art to be studied and practiced: a pleasurable art, to be sure, but a craft. Part of him had always remained untouched, watching the scene with a detached, wry curiosity, analyzing his next move.

Kissing Clark had been nothing like that.

He hadn't thought of strategy when he felt Clark's mouth open to him; he hadn't thought of technique when Clark had bitten his lip so gently and coaxingly. He hadn't thought of _anything at all_ except the feel of Clark's mouth, the touch of his hands, the sound of his hoarse breathing...

Bruce caught himself before he walked into a lamp-post. Damn it, he was doing it again. This was hardly the time or place to think about kissing Clark Kent. It wasn't fair! He'd only done it to help Clark out with his date, there hadn't been any--

Well, no, that wasn't quite honest. But Clark had been so amusingly flustered and Bruce just couldn't help pushing it to see how rattled he could make his friend and--

No, that wasn't quite honest either.

He remembered the sound of his own voice, delirious and low: _God, Clark._ There hadn't been anything objective or amused or academic about how he had felt at that moment.

This time he did walk right into a fire hydrant, barking his shins. _Stop it._ Bruce shook his head violently. Clark was straight and Bruce didn't have the luxury of dwelling on such things. With a Herculean effort, he shoved all profane thoughts of his friend into a small mental box, to be examined later if necessary.

If _absolutely_ necessary.

He was deep in Kadyrov's territory now, he knew. The buildings were in slightly better repair, but with an ill-defined sleek sense of defensiveness and danger about them. Two teens about his age were playing cards on a stoop with an air of nonchalance, but their eyes were flicking about the area with a meticulous caution that spoke of training. Lookouts. Their eyes rested on him and skittered away; they kept playing cards. “You lose, Patsy,” said one of the kids.

“It’s _Patrick_ ,” growled the taller lookout, with the tone of someone who’d said it many times. He was wearing sunglasses and his dark hair was slicked back; his torn and patched clothes hung on his wiry frame. He looked rather like a vicious whippet: high-strung and ready to show his teeth.

“I’m Tony,” said Bruce. Patrick and his partner ignored him. “I heard word on the street that a kid with some skills could find work around here, if he had the nerve for it.”

Now Patrick did look at him. His lip curled as he looked Bruce over from head to toe. “Go back to your mommy and daddy,” he sneered. Bruce set his teeth against reaction as he continued. “Runaway rich kids like you are trouble we don’t need around here. Oh, I know your type. Your parents wouldn’t buy you a Ferrari and so you _ran away from home_.” His voice dripped contempt. “If you need some money, sell those shoes," he said, pointing his chin at them. "They'll feed you for a month down here. Or better yet...” He lowered his sunglasses and leered at Bruce over the tops: “With that mouth, you could probably make yourself a few quick bucks over in Paradise Park...” He added a string of increasingly inventive and obscene possibilities and the other kid joined in, sniggering.

At some point, Bruce turned around and stalked off, stiff-legged, followed by jeers from the ragged kids. He was fuming--more at himself than at them, he had to admit after a block or two. He had thought his clothing was non-descript enough to escape notice, but he had clearly underestimated how well-constructed even his most casual clothes were. He had haunted some of the worst areas of Paris, London, and Rome in his travels, but he’d always gone back to a decent hotel room or dormitory at the end of the night, always known where his next meal was coming from--and it probably showed in the very way he walked and talked and held himself. He’d carefully constructed a worldly-wise, cosmopolitan “international jet-setting spy” persona for himself...and clearly that was exactly what he was going to have to get beyond now.

He kicked angrily at a chunk of ice on the sidewalk, watched it skitter. He didn’t even know what he was going to _do_ with his life, but it always seemed like he was one step behind what he needed.

Gotham brooded around him in the misty dusk, waiting for him to figure it out, whatever the hell it was. She suffered and waited and someday, someday he would put all the pieces together, for her and all her people.

**: : :**

The greenhouse was hot as Clark helped his mother replant some pot-bound roses. There was heat somewhere behind Clark’s eyes, a buzzing, sweltering pain that made it hard to think and had kept him from sleeping well for the last two nights. When he tried, he felt Bruce’s mouth under his, and that made him feel hot and anguished in a very different way. He tried to focus on easing the roses out of their painted china pots, on loosening the tight masses of pale roots that were keeping them from growing.

“Are you okay, Clark?”

“I’m--” He wanted to say he was fine, but the greenhouse was swimming around him. He was tired, so tired of lying to his mother about what was happening. He gripped the trowel in shaking hands. “I don’t know, Ma, I feel so strange lately. My...my head hurts and I...hear strange things.”

Martha’s eyes flashed to him, almost alarmed for a moment before becoming cheerful again. “Well, dear, it must be growing pains. I mean, you’re...you’re...”

Her voice trailed off and Clark realized she was staring at his hands. He looked down to see he had crumpled the trowel blade like paper in his bare hands. The miasma of pain behind his eyes sharpened until he felt almost sick. “Ma...”

Martha Kent’s lower lip was trembling, but she smiled: a horrible, fake smile that made her look tense and agonized. “Let’s just get you home and to bed,” she said as cheerfully as if her son hadn’t mangled steel between his fingers. “I’m sure that headache will go away in no time--”

“--It won’t, Ma!” Clark heard pain and anger in his voice, staining his words scarlet. The sunlight through the greenhouse glass edged everything in hallucinogenic brightness, eerie auras dancing around the roses and lilac bushes. His mother wavered in a jagged welter of pain and guilt and fear. “Every night it’s worse, every day there’s something new and horrible, like I’m--I’m not even human, and--”

 _“--Don’t say such things!”_ Martha’s voice was sharp, edged with grief. “You mustn’t, you mustn’t say such things, Clark, you’re my son, _our son_ , and there is nothing wrong with you, _nothing_!”

Her voice was shaking, and Clark could hear tears under it. Her anguish seemed to be the final spark that ignited behind his eyes, all the terror and shame of the last few months blazing into fiery torment that blotted out his vision in a red wave. He heard china shattering, heard his mother scream, started to turn to look at her--

And saw the red light scything across the room, saw it clip a rosebush neatly in two.

It was coming from his eyes.

He clapped his hands over his eyes, clamped his eyes shut, held the pain inside for an eternity of horror until he heard his mother’s voice nearby. “Clark,” she whispered in the looming silence. “What happened?”

She was safe. She was safe, at least. He wanted to cry, felt sobs shaking his body, but didn’t dare let tears fall. Death from his eyes. He’d almost killed his own mother. Death. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice shaking so hard he could barely understand himself. “But I’m strong. Too strong. I can see things miles away. Hear things no one can hear. I’m fast. Faster than anything. And I can--” _Kill with my eyes._ “I can--”

He flinched violently when he felt his mother’s arms go around him, hugging him from behind. “Don’t touch me,” he cried. “Don’t--it’s dangerous--I could--”

“You could never hurt me,” Martha Kent whispered. “Not my dear boy, my little star.” He felt her sigh stir his hair. “My little star,” she said again. She held him, rocking him gently until he stopped trembling. “Open your eyes,” she said. “You can’t go around with your eyes closed forever,” she went on when he shook his head violently. “I’m here, not in front of you. The worst that will happen is you’ll prune some of our roses.” Amazingly, unbelievably, there was a glint of humor in her voice.

“I can feel it,” he whispered. “It’s still there.”

“Then we wait until it’s gone,” Martha said, as calmly as if she were telling Clark that the monsters under his bed weren’t real. She rested her head on his back and rocked him some more. After a while she said, very softly. “We were driving home one night, Jonathan and I. Driving in the dark, on a long, deserted stretch of highway. And a star came out of the skies, a falling star, bright and beautiful. It landed in the field nearby, and the impact shook the ground. We went to check it.”

She was quiet a long time. Clark waited. The agony behind his eyes was receding into a dull throb.

“We could see that there was something in the crater, a little shining thing, maybe the size of a bed. A crystal sphere, covered with glowing spikes. Jonathan was so brave. So brave. He went to it and it opened before him and inside there was a little baby, the most beautiful little boy, sleeping. He woke up and saw us and laughed, and held his arms out to us to pick him up. Our gift from the stars.” She swallowed. “We took him home. We made him ours. _Ours_.”

“Ma...”

“You’re not human, Clark.” The words were everything Clark had ever been terrified to hear, but his mother’s voice held no fear, no rejection. “But you are my son, and you are the kindest, most gentle person I know.”

“You should have told me.” The quiet accusation caused a fresh jolt of pain behind his eyes; Clark squeezed them more tightly shut.

“Yes.” Martha’s voice was a mere breath behind him. “We should have. Jonathan always said we should, but I...couldn’t bear it. I wanted you to be all ours so much. I just kept hoping it would never matter. I was so afraid I’d lose you. And then--” Her voice broke and wavered, “--and then I lost Jonathan, and I just couldn’t...I couldn’t...” She was weeping against his back. “Forgive me, forgive me.”

The red tangle in his brain dissolved into concern; eyes still closed, he turned in her arms and held her as she cried. “I miss him too,” he murmured. “I wish he were here.”

“Promise me,” she whispered. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone else. I’ve never told another soul, it’s too dangerous.” Clark hesitated and she said _”Please_ ,” in such an anguished tone that he nodded.

“I promise, Ma. Just you and me.”

Some of the tension went out of her. “It’s almost a relief,” she said eventually. “To finally tell you.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Are you feeling...better?” she asked. “You’re going to have to open your eyes sometime,” she added as he tensed in her arms.

“Okay,” he said, hearing the fear in his own voice. “I’ll try.” He cracked open his eyelids just a bit. There was no red glare, nothing melted or exploded in front of him. “I...I think it’s okay,” he said shakily.

Martha shifted to look at him; he flinched away from looking at her directly. She reached out and touched his eyelids gently. “Can you...do that whenever you want?”

 _”No,”_ he said vehemently, but it was rejection rather than negation. Like his ability to shift into a different speed, he could feel the place in his mind now, the _nudge_ he would need to spew scarlet death from his eyes. Never. Never again.

Martha took a long, deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out again, straightening her shoulders as though relinquishing a long-endured burden. “Well,” she said briskly. “I’ll need your help cleaning up the broken flower pots.”

Clark helped sweep up shattered china and clipped rose branches. There were petals scattered on the floor like drops of blood; he shuddered and looked away for a moment. “The spaceship,” he said when they were mostly done, and Martha paused suddenly, a shard of china in her hand. She turned it over a few times: a small, broken thing. “What did you do with the spaceship I came in?”

“We hid it in the barn,” Martha said. “When we touched it, there were...images. Like a hologram. A man and woman, a city.” She rubbed her eyes with a dirt-smudged hand. “They looked sad. The man and woman did. We couldn’t understand what they were saying.”

A memory like a dream rose in Clark’s mind: their last night in Smallville, his mother leaving in the middle of the night, towing a tarp-covered trailer. Dirt and tears on her face when she came back. “You hid it before we came here.”

She nodded. “I buried it out in the fields.” Her grip tightened on the jagged fragment of china and Clark reached out and took it away from her fragile, human hands. She looked up at him. “I’ll show you where it is someday. We’ll find it together.”

“Thank you,” said Clark, looking down at the bit of china. “For everything.”

“I think...those people in the hologram looked like you. I think they were your mother and father.”

Clark shook his head and smiled at her. It was a little weak, but it was the first real smile he’d managed in days. “You’re my mother. And Pa was my father. Nothing can change that.”

She flung her arms around him again and they held each other for a long time in the brilliant, dazzling sunlight of the greenhouse.

A light tap on the door and Bruce’s voice calling out, “Anyone there?” made Martha turn away and go back to sweeping, rubbing at her eyes.

Bruce came around the corner, saw Clark and grinned; his expression reminded Clark of what Bruce’s mouth had felt like, what his tongue had felt like inside his mouth. He felt a heat that nothing to do with the hothouse and also was most certainly not behind his eyes stab through him, and he brushed dirt off his hands with intense concentration for a moment.

“We were just repotting some of the roses,” his mother said. There was both laughter and sadness in her voice. “They grow so fast, and I guess...you can’t keep them in the same pots forever. Not if you want to give them a chance to fulfill their potential.”

“Um, right,” said Bruce, looking from Martha to Clark and back with a slightly bemused expression. “Can I help? We’ve got a couple of hours before the lecture tonight.”

As the late-afternoon sunlight turned the greenhouse into a glass of liquid gold, the three of them repotted most of the roses. Clark watched Bruce gently ease the tangled roots from their pots, watched his mother put new soil around them in larger containers.

Room to grow.


	5. Rescue Attempt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Bruce notices that Fries seems particularly agitated at a lecture, he and Clark find themselves drawn into danger once again.

It was an ice-cold night, with that deep gelid calm which signals a coming storm. Clark could feel the sub-freezing air on his skin, gauge its chill. But it held as much pain for him as a mild summer’s breeze. He felt untouchable, remote as the cold, pale moon. Far away and alone.

“I thought maybe we’d take my bike to the lecture tonight,” Bruce said as they waved goodbye to Martha Kent and walked toward the front of the house. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a spare helmet,” he added with a grin as Clark hesitated. “Safety first and all that.”

Clark managed a smile, although he suspected it looked rather sickly. “Safety first,” he echoed. He heard again his mother screaming, the shattering of china as red light lanced from his eyes. He wasn’t even sure falling off a motorcycle would hurt him anymore. This morning he had tried to cut himself with a knife and failed. All he had done was blunt the blade.

Because he wasn’t human. He was some kind of freakish alien from the stars, crash-landed here as a baby--why? Was he some kind of alien reject, an outcast, a mutant...a time bomb, a dormant killing machine, _what_?

The backs of his eyes itched. He could do it again, cut the motorcycle in two, scythe the trees like the wrath of God. _No. No._

“Hey.” There was a hand on his arm. Bruce shook him gently. “I’m not that bad a driver, I promise,” he said with a lopsided smile. He handed the helmet to Clark and slung a leg over the bike, kick-starting it into life with an impressive roar. “Hop on,” he said, patting the seat behind him.

Clark slid onto the bike behind Bruce and found himself unsure what to do with his hands. He held on to the seat, but when the bike surged forward he instinctively grabbed at Bruce’s waist rather than tumble backwards. He felt Bruce’s chuckle more than heard it. “No problem, just hang on to me,” Bruce said as they coasted down the driveway.

Clark tightened his grip as they hit the road and Bruce sped up. The leather jacket was warm under his hands. As they rounded the wide curve at the bottom of the hill, Bruce shifted backwards with the momentum and Clark found himself largely pressed up against his friend, his face almost up against a back that smelled of leather and gasoline. He started to push himself backwards, then gave up and allowed himself to lean on Bruce a little. Bruce’s driving was sure and deft, the thrumming of the engine a rumbling drone that seemed to drown out his fears. Clark focused on the scent and the feel of warm leather, the sound of the road beneath the wheels, the gentle weaving motion of the bike, and felt almost human. He found himself wishing he could wrap his arms around Bruce more tightly and just lose himself in the moment.

They hit a pothole with a brief jolt, and Clark came back to himself with a bit of a shock. Unbelievable--two hours ago he’d learned he wasn’t even human, that he could kill people with his eyes, and all he could think about at the moment was how many centimeters away Bruce Wayne was? His friend was clearly gifted with great powers of distraction.

For just a moment, Clark allowed himself to be distracted.

**: : :**

The lecture was not going well. Even through his muddled haze of misery, Clark could tell there was something wrong. Victor Fries was stammering and losing his place, and his eyes kept going toward the empty chair where Nora Kelvin usually sat. His handwriting on the board was jerky and sharp, and he was chewing on his lip.

 _They fight?_ Clark scribbled in the margins.

Bruce glanced sideways at the note. _No. He’s not upset or angry. He’s worried._ He underlined the “worried” a couple of times, slowly, as if thinking.

The side door opened and one of Kelvin’s graduate students slipped in. “Espinoza,” Fries snapped, and she flinched.

“I’m sorry I’m late, sir, I was--”

“--Never mind that,” said Fries. “Where is Dr. Kelvin?”

“I was about to say, she sent me with her regrets. She’s on the verge of a major breakthrough with the superfluid helium and can’t leave the lab.”

“She’s--” Fries broke off and swallowed, his thin fingers knotting and unknotting. He didn’t look angry, Clark realized. He looked panicked. “Then that will be all.” He waved dismissively at the audience. “The lecture is over.”

“But she assumed you’d be able to cover for her,” Espinoza stammered, “It’s just basic--”

 _”--Don’t question me,”_ barked Fries. “We’re done here. I’m leaving.”

There was a sharp movement next to Clark; he looked over to see Bruce grabbing both of their notebooks and stuffing them into his bag. “What--” Clark’s question broke off at the sight of the urgency in Bruce’s eyes, and he felt the familiar thrill of excitement he had come to associate with Bruce Wayne: _Something is going to happen._

“Come on,” whispered Bruce, jumping up while everyone else was still putting away their books and buzzing with speculation at the canceled lecture. Fries was already out the door, his notes abandoned on the lectern.

Bruce and Clark hurried out after him.

“The lab’s on the East Campus,” Bruce hissed as they followed the striding figure at a safe distance through the halls. “He’ll take his car.” Indeed, Fries headed straight for the parking lot, breaking into a run the minute he was outside. It had gotten even colder since the lecture had started and he had no coat, but he hardly seemed to feel it.

“Hold on tighter this time,” Bruce said tersely as they slid onto the motorcycle. With a roar the bike sprang to life, sending chips of ice flying as they followed Fries’s car onto the street.

The city whipped by them as Bruce wove in and out of traffic. The first sharp turn made Clark realize that their helmets were still hanging on the back of the bike. He caught a glimpse of Bruce’s profile, pale and set, his dark hair tangled by icy wind, as he skimmed past a truck, another dopplering past them with a wail on the other side. If they crashed, could Clark somehow shield Bruce? He wrapped his arms around Bruce more tightly, his head filled with sudden hideous visions of mangled limbs and abraded flesh, and Bruce shot him a small, reassuring smile. “Almost there!” he yelled above the howl of wind and traffic. Then the wheels slipped sideways on a patch of ice, a sudden sickening loss of traction, and Bruce jolted back around to focus on driving again.

They skidded to a stop in front of the cryogenics lab. “Looks like we beat him,” Bruce said as they got off the bike. “This way.” He dragged Clark into the bushes near the entrance.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Clark whispered as they crouched among the icy evergreens.

“Nora Kelvin’s in danger,” Bruce said. “I think Fries has betrayed her to the Chechen mob. Come on, Clark,” he said as Clark stared, “You can’t imagine _any_ way supercooled helium could be used as a weapon?”

A car skidded into the parking lot. Victor Fries jumped out of it and ran to the doors, swiping his I.D. across the security pad. “Go!” hissed Bruce as Fries bolted through the door.

They made it just before the door swung shut and slipped inside into the dark, cold lab. Emergency lights cast dim red pools of light on the carpeted floor. A figure disappeared around a corner.

Clark felt a chill go down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold as they trailed Victor Fries into the lab.

**: : :**

“Nora!” Bruce could hear the panic in Fries’s voice. “You have to get out of here. Now.” Clark and Bruce were hovering just outside the door of Kelvin’s cryogenics lab, listening to the two scientists argue.

“What?” Kelvin’s response was filled with disbelieving laughter. “I’m sorry I skipped on the lecture, but Victor, darling, _look_ at these results! It’s like nothing I’ve seen before, it’s--”

As she continued obliviously explaining her latest experiment to a stammering Fries, Bruce suddenly felt Clark grab his arm. “People coming,” he hissed.

Bruce hadn’t heard anything, but it didn’t occur to him to doubt Clark. In seconds they were tucked into a crowded custodial closet nearby. The door clicked shut behind them as he heard the first voices coming down the hall.

Darkness and the smell of cleaning products surrounded them, and Bruce realized to his chagrin that he and Clark had ended up face to face, their arms practically around each other, pressed into the tiny space of the closet. Clark’s hair smelled of wind, and for an instant Bruce could imagine himself burying his face in it, breathing in the scent of his friend, feeling its silky weight on his lips...

He forced himself to focus on the voices outside the closet, but it was difficult when part of him was busy worrying that an ill-chosen movement would reveal certain...physical reactions...to Clark. With an effort, he concentrated on the footsteps and voices.

At least six people, maybe more. He recognized one voice: an oily bass speaking Chechen. Shamil Bashayev, one of Kadyrov’s lieutenants. In the lab, Fries was still speaking urgently to an exhilarated Kelvin, who was ignoring him.

Bruce heard the doors to the lab slam open.

Kelvin’s voice fell silent, then burst forth once more: “What the hell are you--how did you--ow! Get your hands off of me!”

“Dr. Fries,” Bashayev rumbled. “You assured Mr. Kadyrov that the lab would be empty and we would be free to take the data at our leisure. This is...unfortunate.”

A brief silence. Then Kelvin spoke again, her voice shocked: “Victor?” A pause. “Victor, look at me! How did these men get in here?” Another silence. Her next question was sharp: _”Did you give them the security codes to this building?_ ” She drew a harsh, sobbing breath. “My life’s work, Victor--how could you sell it to these brutes, to use for murder and chaos--”

“Nora.” Fries’s normally calm voice was shaking. “They said...they said they’d hurt you. That they would do what was necessary to get the data. They said they’d leave you alone if I...let them in.” A silence. Bruce could hear Clark breathing in it. Victor’s voice burst out again, fierce with anguish: _”I couldn’t let them hurt you!_ I’d do anything--anything at all to protect you, Nora. You _must_ understand. It was all for you!”

“This is all quite sentimental,” Bashayev observed dryly, “But it does not solve our problem here. Boys, please start searching the lab. And restrain Dr. Fries as well.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Fries’s voice was icy calm again, the passion of a moment before vanished.

“What exactly do you think, Doctor?” Bashayev sounded blackly amused. “You have left us little choice, after all. We were to take the data in secret and no one was to know until the proper moment. As it is...” Bruce could nearly hear the shrug of his massive shoulders. “It is nothing personal.”

There was a pause in which the very air seemed to congeal. Clark draw in a long, shaking breath and put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder like a silent statement. Bruce shook his head, the motion unseen in the darkness, meant mostly to try and convince himself: _what can we do?_ But he knew he and Clark couldn’t just walk away from this. The question was, could he make sure Clark didn’t get himself hurt? Maybe he could convince Clark to slip away and call the police...

Bashayev’s voice came again: “You, kid.” Someone said something indistinct. “Right. Patsy. You. Go stand lookout.” Bruce felt alarm skitter down his spine; once there was a lookout outside the door, he and Clark would be trapped in here. He opened the closet door and slipped out, Clark right behind him, but it was too late: the lab door swung open and the skinny, sunglass-wearing kid from earlier, Patrick, was staring at them.

He opened his mouth, but Clark was already moving surprisingly fast, clapping a hand over Patrick’s mouth and dragging him down the hall a way. Patrick made a sudden motion as if he were trying to bite Clark’s hand, then stopped abruptly. “Ow,” he mumbled indistinctly.

“Patrick,” hissed Bruce, and he saw surprise in the boy’s eyes behind the dark glass.

Clark raised an eyebrow. “You know this guy?”

“We met. Briefly.” Bruce turned back to Patrick. “If we let you go, do you promise not to raise the alarm?”

Patrick nodded fervently, his eyes wide and innocent. But when Clark removed his hand, he drew in a sharp breath. Clark clapped his hand back over his mouth before the yell could come out.

“Damn it,” Bruce snarled, resisting an impulse to shake him, “This isn’t some penny-ante robbery, they are going to _kill_ those two people! Doesn’t that bother you, even a little bit?”

Patrick flinched, just the tiniest fraction, and the fierceness in his expression turned sullen. “Not my problem,” he mumbled between Clark’s fingers.

Bruce looked at Clark. “Let him talk. But sock him if he starts to yell again.” Clark looked dubious about “socking” anyone, but removed his hand. Bruce met Patrick’s eyes, his fingers itching to snatch the dark glasses off and grind them underfoot. “You’re really willing to let innocent people die so your boss can get some super-weapon?”

“Wasn’t supposed to be any killing,” Patrick muttered. “Wasn’t supposed to be anyone here.”

“But there _are_. You’ll let them die?”

Patrick’s eyes blazed. “What the hell am I supposed to do, rich kid? You ain’t got a clue what it’s like, eating from dumpsters, so hungry you’d sell your mother for an apple, sell _yourself_ for lots less than that. Kadyrov keeps me safe and fed if I do what I’m told. You!” He sneered, looking Bruce up and down. “You ain’t got a clue.”

“But you don’t want them to die,” Clark said suddenly and with certainty, and Patrick rolled his eyes.

“I’m not a _psycho_ ,” he snarled. “But what the hell’s a kid like me gonna do? I stick my neck out, there's three corpses instead of two, end of story. All I'm good at is running away. Being a hero’s easy on a full stomach, we don’t all have rich daddies to buy us caviar.”

Bruce saw Clark wince, but neither responded to the shot. “We’re not heroes,” Bruce said, meeting Clark’s eyes. “We just don’t want to see people get killed.” He looked back at Patrick. “Like you. So I don’t think you’ll raise the alarm.”

Whether or not Patrick would have raised the alarm remained forever a moot point, because as Bruce finished talking, there was a sudden commotion in the lab. A voice that Bruce barely recognized as Victor Fries howled something inarticulate, and then there was a deafening chorus of shattering glass and gunshots.

 _”Run, Nora!”_ cried Fries.

 _”Get them!”_ bellowed Bashayev.

“Crap!” yelled Patrick, and wrenched free from Clark’s grip to bolt as the laboratory doors burst open.

A wild-eyed Fries charged through the door, dragging Nora Kelvin behind him. Without thinking, Bruce dashed toward them. “This way!” he yelled, running down the hall. Fries and Kelvin followed, with Clark bringing up the rear. Something _pinged_ off the wall, and plaster exploded next to them.

“Forgive me, Nora!” panted Fries as they pelted down corridors and through doorways.

Bruce caught a glimpse of Nora Kelvin’s face. There were tear stains on her cheeks, but she was almost smiling. “Let’s--let’s survive being shot at first, Victor,” she gasped as they shoved a cabinet in front of a door to slow down pursuit.

Fries swept her up in a sudden kiss, and she threw her arms around him for an instant. Bruce couldn’t help but stare: _Apparently love makes you totally crazy._ Behind him, Clark cleared his throat, and the scientists broke their clinch to pelt down the hall again.

At the end of the hall, Bruce slammed open the next set of doors--to find Patrick there, leaning against a banister and looking studiously casual. “West doors are guarded,” he noted.

No time for discussions of heroism. “You get them out,” Bruce said, pushing Fries and Kelvin at the kid. “We’ll create a diversion.”

Naked shock on Patrick’s face. “I could just take ‘em right to Bashayev, you know. I’d get in really good with the boss.”

“You won’t,” Clark and Bruce said in unison. “Just _go_ ,” added Bruce as Patrick hesitated.

He glanced at both of them, then nodded. “This way,” he said to the scientists. "We'll take the old tunnels to the administration building, they won't have posted a guard there."

Nora stared at him. "How do you know about those?"

"I always case all my possible escape routes,” he said with an exaggeratedly cheeky wink. "Let's get going."

Bruce looked at Clark as they bolted down the stairs. “Go with them,” he said, knowing before Clark’s chuckle how useless it was. Despite the danger, he felt a sudden irrational sense of relief that Clark would be there, like nothing could ever go truly wrong as long as they were together. _Crazy,_ he thought. _You’re crazy, Bruce Wayne._

But he didn’t feel crazy when Clark clapped him on the shoulder and held on for just a moment, his hand warm.

Clark turned and grabbed a fire alarm on the wall, yanking the lever. Bells yammered down the hallway. “Let’s buy some time,” he said, grinning at Bruce.

They pelted down the corridor, trying to make as much noise as possible, shouting instructions to imaginary scientists. Heavy footsteps behind them, shouting in English and Chechen. They could do this, thought Bruce, adrenaline and exhilaration driving weary legs on. They were back in the lab somehow; there was shattered glass and blood on the floor, a shocking amount of it. Fries must have fought like a tiger. Bruce and Clark skidded past the lab tables, knocking beakers full of liquid everywhere, dodging broken machines spitting sparks. There was a door in front of them, a heavy steel door, and there were voices right behind them.

Clark yanked the door open and charged through it. Borne on momentum, Bruce followed him, slamming the door behind them.

They both came up short at where they found themselves.

It was a room with stainless steel walls that reflected their own faces back at them. There were racks with beakers and vats.

There were no other exits.

Outside the door, there was pounding and yelling, then a triumphant bark. Bruce looked up to see an array of muzzles like lasers set on the walls. “Get out!” he yelled to Clark, but there was no way out.

There was a sharp, shrill sound like a dentist’s drill.

Icy blue-white light lanced from the walls and the world vanished into dazzling blank cold, empty and absolute.


	6. Fire and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce has been frozen by an experimental weapon, while outside the locked room a fire rages.  This looks like a job for...Clark Kent?

Clark was encased in ice.

It was all around him like crystal, clear and shining and cold. He tried to move his head, and couldn’t. He felt a moment’s panic, then forced himself to relax. Reaching inside, he found reserves of power and tapped them. Energy surged through him, and he shook off the ice with a shrug and a chiming crash.

He turned and saw Bruce.

 _”No!_ ” The word echoed strangely off the bleak silver walls as Clark dropped to his knees beside his friend. Within a block of flawless ice Bruce lay, his eyes closed, his skin pale, almost lavender. His hands were outflung as if to ward off a blow, frozen in the middle of his fall.

With shaking hands Clark shattered the block of ice just enough to reach Bruce, to touch frosted skin and pull him from his icy coffin. Bruce’s heart was still beating, faint and weak, and his breath was shallow. Outside the steel door Clark could hear voices, crashes as if equipment were being destroyed. He stared around the windowless room in desperation, feeling the bitter bite of cold as an abstract fact, a distant reality, one that was going to kill his friend. He touched Bruce’s face with trembling fingers--warmer, but not enough, not fast enough.

And then a thought occurred to him that made his breath clog in his throat. Could he do it--? Was it possible--? For a moment he almost rejected the idea, remembering rose petals scattered like blood, his mother's choked scream. _Never again._

Bruce was dying. He couldn't let Bruce die.

Looking down at his own shaking hands, he shifted his vision into that extra range, feeling heat at the corners of his eyelids like scalding tears, seeing the murderous red beams play over his own fingers. Then he...de-focused, relaxing, letting the sharp intensity fray and soften. The crisp red pinpoints on his hands blurred and widened until there was only a sense of deep warmth, a rosy light rather than scarlet.

Then he turned his vision to Bruce's pale, still face.

Ruddy light washed across Bruce's features, bathing them in warmth. Clark looked at Bruce's face: the strong cheekbones, the straight dark brows, the delicate closed eyelids. As the light lingered, Clark could see the tightness and pain ease, see Bruce's features start to relax. There was something trembling in Clark's chest, something like hope. He could hardly tear his eyes from Bruce's face, but he did somehow, turning his gaze to his chest and arms, feeling the brittle leather warm and soften in the light from his eyes. He lifted Bruce's hands in his own to stare at them, to trace each long, deft finger with gold-rose light. The blue tinge faded from beneath his fingernails, and Clark could hear the blood singing in the capillaries again. He realized he was holding his breath in something close to awe as Bruce's skin lost its waxy pallor and became warm and rosy again. There was a hangnail on his index finger, a tiny tear; without thinking Clark lifted his hand and breathed on the knuckles, brushing the vibrant, precious, living flesh with his mouth for a bare moment. Then he turned his attention to Bruce's legs and feet, warming and reviving the icy skin.

Bruce sighed, a tiny exhalation, and Clark felt lost in the sound of his breath, the music of his blood. His chest tightened, and he felt tears form in his eyes, felt them shift to mist in the warmth, unfallen. _Thank you_ he whispered to whatever fate had brought him here, had given him these powers, the means to save his friend. _Thank you._

In the room behind them there was a shout and a sound of running feet receding. As Clark gathered Bruce into his eyes, still bathing him in gentle light, he heard a roar of flames and a sharp electric crackle. Still surrounded by arctic cold, Clark could _feel_ the pressure in the air, growing unbearable. An electronic whine in the lab started teeth-rattlingly low, then climbed quickly into something only Clark could hear, something that spoke of cataclysm.

Clark held on tightly to Bruce, wrapping his body around his friend's as the lab erupted into flames that shattered the walls and flung the two of them out into nothingness.

Focused only on keeping Bruce safe as they tumbled, on shielding him from the flaming debris whirring by like bullets, Clark held Bruce's limp body and waited to hit the ground. The lab was six stories up, he remembered with an agonized clarity as flame licked at the back of his neck. He tried to sense gravity, tried to turn himself so his back would take the blow, but there was nothing, he had no sense of up or down as metal and gouts of blazing chemicals traced patterns around them as they tumbled and turned end over end, over and over.

No gravity.

After a while he became aware that the sparks he was staring at were stars. They were no longer spinning. He blinked at them slowly, dazed, cradling Bruce's head against his chest. He was looking at the stars. Had he hit the ground without noticing?

He turned his head and stared down at a burning building hundreds of yards below him.

There was nothing between him and the ground.

Panic spiked his heartbeat and he heard himself make a startled whimpering noise; his feet flailed wildly in midair until he realized he wasn't going to fall. He was floating, high above Gotham, light as a feather with Bruce in his arms.

He was flying.

He was _flying._

Carefully, hardly daring to breathe, he righted himself so he was standing in the air. He looked down at Bruce and could breathe again when he realized Bruce was unharmed, still shivering but no longer pale as death.

Below them there were sirens, fire trucks and police cars barreling toward the explosion. Bashayev and his men were almost to their cars, yelling at each other.

Clark was flying, and Bruce was alive in his arms, and it was a small thing, a very small thing indeed, to focus on the tires of the getaway cars and burn tiny holes into them, watching the cars sag slightly.

Bruce sighed in his sleep, shivering, and pulled closer to Clark's chest. The night air was cold, but not cold enough to chill him again.

Gently, filled with sudden hope and exaltation under the clear stars, Clark carried him home and touched down lightly, undetected, on the doorstep of Wayne Manor.

**: : :**

Bruce heard voices nearby, speaking softly. There was a hand on his forehead. "Where am I?" he asked. Or tried to, but his voice didn't seem to be working quite right. The hand moved away and light hit his eyelids, lancing pain at him. He growled in incoherent protest and felt consciousness slipping away again.

"If he's cranky, it's probably a good sign," said Alfred Pennyworth's voice from nearby, followed by a gust of Clark's laughter.

Bruce faded back into dreams on the sound of that laughter, strange dreams where he was lifted and carried across a river of stars to safety.

**: : :**

There was a slippage of time; when he came to again it was dark. He opened his eyes to find himself in his own bedroom. Clark was asleep on a chair by the bed, his mouth open and head lolling at what had to be an uncomfortable angle. "Clark," said Bruce, and Clark's eyes snapped open.

"Mr. Pennyworth!" Clark yelled as he sat up.

"Ow," said Bruce.

Clark clapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry," he whispered as the door opened and Alfred entered the room.

Alfred looked at Bruce critically, frowning. "It's good to see you awake again, Master Bruce."

"What happened? I remember the experiment room, but...how did I get here?"

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember driving back?" When Bruce just looked blank, Alfred said, "I suppose we must thank our lucky stars you made it all in your state. Driving a motorcycle in such a state of hypothermia, heavens."

Bruce sat up gingerly and rubbed at his eyes with heavy hands. "Did you drive?" he asked Clark.

Clark looked horrified. "I don't know how to drive a motorcycle!"

"Well, however you managed it, sir, you both made it home and the motorcycle was in the garage in the morning."

The windows were dark. "Have I been unconscious all day?"

"Actually..." Alfred hesitated. "You've slept for more than forty-eight hours. You needed it," he added at Bruce's stricken look, "So don't go pushing yourself further. I'll not tolerate you collapsing or any such foolishness." He looked at Clark. "I'm going to fetch some soup. Don't let him out of bed."

Bruce looked at Clark's rumpled clothes. "That means tonight's Saturday. Didn't you have that holiday ball to go to?"

Clark looked sheepish. "Oh, I canceled. Roxy didn't mind much, though she was annoyed. She said I would have been a boring date anyway." Clark chuckled. "She said nothing interesting ever happened with me around."

Bruce couldn't help the laugh that rattled his chest until Clark looked alarmed. "You're a boring, boring man, Clark Kent," he wheezed.

Clark stood up and and fluffed the pillows under Bruce's head with a businesslike air, which made Bruce want to laugh again, but he was exhausted after his last bout with humor. "The police caught Bashayev and his men," Clark said softly as he sat back down. "Kelvin and Fries are safe. I haven't heard anything about the kid who helped us."

"I'm glad," Bruce said, perhaps about all three things. He felt warm and drowsy. "You missed the ball," he muttered. "You wasted all that practice, huh."

Clark looked startled, then smiled slightly. "I don't know as I'd call it _wasted_ ," he said, looking down at his hands, not meeting Bruce's eyes.

Before Bruce could cudgel any kind of response from his tired brain, there was a tap at the door and Alfred appeared with a steaming tureen and bowl. "Master Clark, please see that he eats every drop of this."

Clark took the tureen from him and sniffed. "Mulligatawny stew. Smells good." He brandished the spoon at Bruce. "Will you eat, or shall I spoon-feed you?"

Bruce's stomach took this moment to growl loudly. "I can feed myself," he said with as much dignity as he could muster. Clark smiled and dished him some stew.

Bruce thought he'd only manage a bite or two, but to his surprise the whole tureen was soon empty. "Tell Alfred to give you some too," he mumbled as Clark took the dishes away and put them down on the side table.

"I will soon," Clark said. He sat down and for a moment they were both silent. Bruce felt like he was drifting in and out of sleep, white cotton eiderdown like clouds around him, Clark watching over him. "Thank you," Clark said very quietly.

"For what?" said Bruce sleepily, his eyes mostly closed.

"For showing me that I could help people. That I wasn't just a monster."

Bruce's chuckle was blurred. "Don't be silly," he managed to say. "You'd make a terrible monster. Always...trying to help everyone..." He wanted to say more, but the words got lost in a huge yawn.

"Thank you," Clark said again, and Bruce fell asleep once more, warm and replete.


	7. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the penultimate chapter of this arc, two households spend Christmas together, and Clark and Bruce part ways once again.

The door to the Kent bungalow flew open almost before the doorbell had stopped ringing. Clark Kent stood in the doorway, beaming. “Merry Christmas!”

“A very Merry Christmas to you as well, Master Clark,” said Alfred Pennyworth as he and Bruce entered the little house. Inside, the air was warm and filled with the scents of turkey and cinnamon; as Clark took the steaming covered platter from Alfred the rich smell of figs was added to the mix. From the living room, Bing Crosby was crooning about being home for Christmas.

“My goodness, is it snowing again?” Martha Kent exclaimed as she took their coats. She was smiling at them both, which made Bruce suspect Clark hadn't told her the whole story of how he'd gotten frostbite. Bruce himself had been--not untruthful, but vague about certain details when talking to Alfred about it. Mostly the details involving large men with guns.

“It does seem like another storm is coming in,” Alfred said. They continued talking about the weather and food, but Clark was pulling Bruce toward the living room.

The tree seemed to take up most of the tiny space: festooned with tinsel and lights, it filled the room with the sharp scent of fir. Bruce added the silver-wrapped packages in his arms to the small heap already under the tree.

“How are you feeling?” Clark asked, sitting down on the floor and crossing his legs.

“Fine,” Bruce said, joining him. In reality, he still felt a little bit shaky, but he was almost back to normal from his brush with frostbite. He still couldn't remember much about what happened after they'd been locked in that experiment room. It seemed some of his meditation techniques had paid off, if he'd been able to get them out of the building and home on autopilot like that.

“Shall we open the presents before dinner?” Martha Kent was carrying two steaming mugs; Bruce caught a waft of apples and cinnamon as she bent to hand him his.

“Why wait?” Clark burst out, practically wriggling like a puppy.

Martha laughed and rumpled his hair. “You hand them out this year, little Star.”

Clark caught her hand briefly and Bruce saw a look pass between them, something intense and affectionate. His throat tightened and he plucked a bit of tinsel off the tree to focus on for a moment, twining it around his fingers.

“Okay, let’s give Bruce your present first, then,” said Clark, handing Bruce a small squishy package. Bruce unwrapped it carefully, opening the bright paper to reveal... “Aw, Ma!” exclaimed Clark in disgust. “Really? _Socks_?”

Bruce held the woolen socks in his hands--hand-knitted and thick, dark green as pine needles. “They’re perfect, Mrs. Kent,” he said as Clark continued to make huffy noises.

“Well,” said Martha dismissively, “You travel so much and I hate to think of your feet being cold.”

Clark continued to hand out presents from the little stash--English shaving soap for Alfred, heirloom tomato seeds for Mrs. Kent. “Open that one,” said Bruce, unable to wait any longer. “The one in red foil for you.”

“It’s from you?” Clark shook the long, narrow box in his hands, listening to the clunking noise. “What is it?”

Bruce shoved his shoulder lightly. “Open it, silly.” He watched Clark’s face closely, trying not to look too eager.

Clark’s curious expression collapsed into something oddly blank as he opened the box. He reached in and curled his fingers around the silver dagger, rubbing his thumb across one of the red glass gems. “This is...” His voice trailed off and he just stared.

“It’s a letter opener,” Bruce explained, his eagerness giving way to anxiety as Clark didn’t respond. “I don’t...I don’t know if you remember, but we had one like it in our old treehouse, and this isn’t exactly the same design, but it’s close...” He was babbling, he realized, and clamped his mouth shut. “Anyway, it’s a letter opener,” he said. “If you’re going to be a reporter you’re going to have a lot of letters.”

“I remember,” Clark said, looking up from the box. His eyes were shining. “I remember it too. Thank you.” He put the lid back on the box carefully. “Here. This is from me.”

It was a small, square box. Bruce opened it and a round metal object fell into his hand: a tiny compass, its bronze cover dented and battered.

“I thought you could use a compass when you were traveling,” Clark said. “And I knew you could just buy a super-fancy one yourself, so...it was my father’s,” he added softly.

“I can’t...I can’t take this,” Bruce said. The cover had a compass rose on it, with the sun and moon etched into the brass. He slid it aside to look at the little needle, quivering toward north.

“Of course you can. It’s a present,” Clark said, grinning.

Bruce glanced almost involuntarily to Alfred and Martha Kent, but they were both smiling their approval, so he closed the compass and put it gently back in its box. “Thank you,” he said, a little thickly.

There were more presents--some practical, some silly--until the floor was covered with wrapping paper, which made Alfred _tsk_ and bustle around smoothing it out and folding it up. Martha was working in the kitchen, and Clark was curled up on the sofa reading a book he’d just gotten from Alfred. Bruce sat next to him, trying to focus on his own book, but he was warm and tired from his first major outing since his injury, and the book slipped to the side as he dozed.

“Lie down, dummy.” Clark’s voice was affectionate as he grabbed Bruce’s hand and tugged him down onto the sofa. Bruce found himself horizontal, blinking drowsily at the lights of the tree as Clark continued to read next to him. He slipped in and out of a sleep that was filled with images and sounds from the last few days: Victor Fries’s desperate worried eyes, Patrick’s sarcastic voice, Clark’s breath on his neck. Warmth and comfort.

“Ready to eat?” Martha’s voice woke him, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“You bet!” exclaimed Clark, grabbing a bookmark.

“Would the lady of the house care to say grace?” Alfred said as they sat down, and Martha smiled.

Bruce bowed his head as she cleared her throat. “Many thanks for all the blessings we have: for food and shelter and friendship. And prayers for all those souls tonight who will be without them.”

 _For all those souls tonight..._ Surrounded by smiles and comfort, Bruce remembered Patrick’s words: _You ain’t got a clue what it’s like_.

He had been right, Bruce thought, looking at the laden table. It was a strange feeling, like pushing through brambles and suddenly having them fall away, leaving the path ahead shadowed but clear. Patrick had been right.

The food was delicious, and Bruce ate carefully, savoring every bite, his mind elsewhere, planning and plotting. By the time the apple pie was brought out, he knew what he was going to do. He looked over at Clark, who was laughing and waving a forkful of pie with dangerous enthusiasm, explaining something. He had to do it tonight, before he could change his mind.

It wouldn’t be easy, Bruce thought. But he had to learn, had to understand. No one could fight what they didn’t understand.

**: : :**

“We can wash those up in the morning, dear,” said Martha as Clark picked up the plates from the table. “Why don’t you come over here.”

Clark went to the living room, where his mother was holding a box wrapped in silver paper. “I couldn’t give this to you earlier,” she said. “but I wanted to...well, here.”

Frowning, Clark removed the paper and opened the box, reaching in to touch the bright fabric inside. It felt strange under his hands, fine and light and silken.

“That’s the cloth that you were wrapped in when you father and I found you,” Martha said, her voice low. Clark looked up at her sharply and she went on, “I tried to make it in the style of the clothes those holograms were wearing. I remember them...like it was yesterday.”

Clark lifted it from the box and held it up: a bright uniform in red and blue, with a red symbol on the chest surrounded by gold, like a stylized “S.” “What’s this?” he asked, touching it lightly.

“They wore something like that on their clothes. Like a family crest, maybe. Maybe it was their name. Your name,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice faltering. After all this time, to hold in his hands a piece of his lost past, his family...

“They loved you very much,” Martha said. “They didn’t want to give you up.” She smiled slightly. “A parent knows these things.”

“I wonder what happened to them,” he said, running a finger over the shining symbol, following its curves. “I wonder why I’m here.”

Martha chuckled. “It’s a question we all ask,” she said. “And maybe the only answer is one we make ourselves. But I can tell you this,” she added, standing up and kissing the top of his head. “I’m very glad you’re here with me.” She indicated the costume. “Are you going to try it on?”

“Not yet,” Clark said. “It doesn’t feel like the right time yet. I just want to...to have it, right now.”

His mother nodded. “I understand.” She stretched, yawning. “Let’s clean up the dishes and hit the hay, shall we?”

Clark was in bed an hour later, but he couldn’t sleep. It was still snowing outside, huge white flakes swirling through the air, blotting out the Manor. Bruce’s letter opener glinted on the bureau. It wasn’t quite the same as the lost Sword of Oaths--Clark couldn’t help smiling at the overwrought term--but it meant Bruce remembered it. That was the greatest present of all.

Clark remembered Bruce’s eyes at dinner, abstracted and thoughtful. Something was going to happen, he thought suddenly, certainty clicking into place.

Pulling on a coat and boots, he slipped out of the bungalow and made his way along the buried path to the moon garden, still locked in snow and ice,

Bruce was there, staring at the statue at the heart of the garden, snow on his shoulders and in his dark hair. He looked at Clark with no surprise. “I thought you might come,” he said. “I was hoping.”

“You’re leaving,” whispered Clark. Bruce was carrying nothing, wearing only his leather jacket and jeans, but Clark could see his eyes.

“I’ve left a note with Alfred to tell the press I’m off for a pleasure tour of Europe. I’ve arranged everything.”

“But you won’t really be in Europe.”

Bruce shook his head. His eyes were silver in the moonlight. “No. But I need people not to look for me.”

After a moment, Clark nodded. “I understand.”

Bruce reached into his pocket and pulled out the little compass, swinging aside the battered cover. By sheer coincidence, the needle swiveled to point straight at Clark. Bruce smiled, a small and secret smile, and put the compass away. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I promise.”

“I know.”

Bruce looked around the garden, sleeping under its blanket of snow. “I’ve still never seen this place in bloom. I want to see it in the spring. Everything bursting into blossom.”

“It will be here when you get back,” Clark said.

Bruce raised a hand as if for a handshake, but as Clark reached out he suddenly touched Clark’s cheek instead for a fleeting moment. His hand was cold, but the touch burned.

“I know,” Bruce said.

Clark watched him walk away through the swirling curtains of snow, watched until he couldn’t make out Bruce’s form any more.

And then he watched a little longer.

**: : :**

There was snow under Patrick’s collar. He shook it out and held his hands over the fire guttering in the trash can, listening to the snowflakes hiss as they fell through it.

“You seem to be between jobs at the moment,” said a voice from the shadows, and the rich kid with the strange eyes stepped into the circle of light.

“Hey, you’re alive,” said Patrick, trying not to show the relief that flooded through him. He’d heard the explosion, searched for news of survivors, and found no mention of any weird teens with a messiah complex. They were both trouble, that’s for sure, but Patrick didn’t like to think of them dying while helping him scarper with the brainiacs.

“Looks like you dodged the cops.”

Patrick assembled a bored expression. “I got a gift for getting out of tight places.” He examined his fingernails nonchalantly. “They’re calling me ‘slick as an eel’ on the streets now. I figure it’s a better nickname than ‘Patsy.’”

“‘Slick?’ I like it,” said the kid, and Patrick laughed.

“Not that, but never mind. What are you doing out on Christmas, far from the loving bosoms of your Mummy and Poppy?”

The kid flicked a look over him. “Would you like to trade jackets?”

Patrick looked at the black leather jacket, then at his own threadbare, ratty twill, and laughed again.

“I’m serious.”

“Hey, if you’re crazy I’d be crazier not to take advantage.” Patrick shrugged out of his jacket and put on the leather one. It was a little big, but warm. “I’ll grow into this,” he said.

“I have no doubt. How about your shoes? Can I have those?”

“Sneakers with holes in the toes for solid boots? No complaints here.” This was shaping up to the best Christmas ever. “How about those socks? I’ll take those off your hands,” he said, eyeing the warm-looking dark green wool.

“The socks I keep,” the kid said swiftly, and Patrick shrugged.

“Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.”

“How do I look? Better?” The kid slouched in front of the fire, looking sullen.

“Good, but not good enough,” Patrick said. He pulled out his trusty switchblade. “Don’t panic,” he said, although the kid hadn’t flinched at all. “It’s your haircut. Way too nice. All the discerning street kids look like someone with a switchblade hacked it off. That’s because someone did,” he added.

The kid grimaced. “Want to play barber?”

Weird kid, thought Patrick, as he sliced off hunks of dark hair, sending black strands flying to mix with the snow in the air. “I could just cut your throat and take the rest of your stuff,” he pointed out.

A cheerful, wry grin. “You already have pretty much everything valuable on me.”

Patrick frowned. "Sure, but this isn't some kind of _game._ I gotcha, you think you're going to see how the other half lives and all, but--" He hesitated, hacking off another lock of hair. "Hey, it pains me to admit it, but I kind of like you, and I don't want to find your body in an alley somewhere."

A shadow passed over the kid's face for a moment. "Don't worry about me," he said shortly. He looked straight at Patrick, and Patrick found himself looking away first from those uncanny eyes. "I know it's not a game."

Patrick shrugged. “Well, don't come running to me when you get your kneecaps broken." He flipped the switchblade shut. "There. You’re still too clean and well-fed, but time will take care of those things naturally, don’t worry.”

“Thank you.”

Patrick shook his head. “You’re crazy, you know that? What the hell are you doing?”

“Learning,” said the kid. He held out his hand, and after an awkward moment Patrick realized he was supposed to shake it, so he did so. The kid nodded, then turned to go.

“Hey!” Patrick called. Already the snow was making him hard to see, a shadow among the whiteness. “Where are you going, anyway?”

He didn’t look back. “Further,” he said.

And then he was gone.


	8. The Present and the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the arc ends, Bruce and Clark's lives move in very different directions--for now.

Bruce Wayne had hit the jackpot. There in the bottom of the dumpster was half a slice of pizza, frozen to the metal bottom. Leaning in, he carefully pried it up, then squatted next to the dumpster to enjoy his prize.

How long had it been since he’d tasted pizza? Bruce closed his eyes and thought back, trying to reassemble the taste of a hot, fresh pizza from the bits of icy dough and old tomato sauce in his mouth. It had been two months ago, with Clark. They’d stopped at Vito’s on the way to one of their cryogenics lectures. Clark had insisted on pepperoni, and Bruce had lectured him about nitrates and preservatives. They’d eventually split the difference and gotten half-pepperoni, half-mushroom. Bruce remembered the warmth of the restaurant, the sound of Clark’s voice, and sighed slightly, his breath smoking around him.

His current meal was pepperoni, but Bruce found himself in no position to complain about preservatives. He felt like he could actually use some, at the moment.

He was getting by okay, scrounging off the streets, getting used to cold and hunger dogging his every step. He’d watched other people begging on the corners, learned the tricks they used to elicit sympathy from passers-by. He’d even tried them himself rather than turn to three-card montie and fleecing Gothamites.

Bruce finished the pizza and rubbed at his feet with numb hands. One time last month he’d been panhandling, trying to make enough change for a cup of coffee to warm his hands, when a familiar face had walked by, stopped in front of him. Bruce had almost started to stammer something, but Lucius Fox had never met his eyes as he deposited a dollar bill in Bruce’s cup. No one expected to see Bruce Wayne homeless on the streets of Gotham, so it was as good as being invisible.

Bruce had felt strange about that for days.

Standing up, he began to walk his route. Each day he walked the same circuit, altering it slightly to include different areas, studying every alley and building and park. By now he knew the exact patterns of the fire escapes across the northern quarter of Gotham. He could see it in his mind’s eye, a three-dimensional maze.

He could get from one side of the island to the other without touching the ground, without being detected.

He knew the traffic patterns, the subway and bus routes. He studied the flow of humanity across the city, like glowing lines of force, rivers of motion.

There was still so much to learn, so much to do. He had to _know_ his city, every brick of it, every fire hydrant. Information was power.

He needed more power.

His stomach gurgled loudly, clenching around the congealed pizza, and a wave of dizziness went over him as he started to stand up. Hunger was a constant companion now, a demon chewing on his bones, directing his thoughts. It drove and flogged him--he’d be studying mail carrier routes and find himself dreaming of crisp apples, baked ham, warm bread. It was hard to concentrate, sometimes.

He’d caught sight of his reflection in a store window once and it had haunted his sleep after: the sunken, burning eyes, the hollow cheeks. He looked like he was living on the brink of starvation, and perhaps he was.

He prowled the dusk, watching the pickpockets work the street with a dispassionate eye, seeing how they deflected and dodged attention.

Night was falling; always a dangerous time. Sometimes he’d had to move quickly to avoid the packs of roving, nearly-feral teens looking for someone to torment, someone to make hurt more than they did. He was quick and smart, but he was also malnourished and tired, and there were usually seven or eight of them.

However, when he heard a high, terrified voice screaming panicky curses, swamped in cruel laughter, he went toward it unerringly as a lodestone.

A girl, no more than nine or ten, armed with only a pipe and the defiant glare in her eyes, stood between a crumpled small body and a gang of teens. “You leave us alone, cocksuckers!” she yelled, the bravado in her voice undermined by her tiny frame and shaking arms.

The gang members sniggered and nudged each other. One made a feint at her and danced away when she swung wildly at him. They were playing with her like a cat with a mouse, and Bruce’s blood heated to a boil at the sight.

The next time one of her tormentors closed with her, he found himself thrown head over heels as a tattered figure launched itself into the fray.

The others gaped in amazement, then hollered and charged Bruce. He felt something whistle past his ear and bloom into pain, but ducked and kicked hard, sending another tumbling. There was a loud, hollow _thunk_ next to him, a howl of pain, and he turned to see the young girl laying about her wildly with the pipe, screaming curses. The kid she’d just smacked with the pipe staggered away, holding a dangling arm, and the sight seemed to break the others’ morale. They scattered and ran.

The moment they were out of sight, the girl dropped her pipe and flew to the side of the small figure on the ground. “Lavon,” she gasped, starting to sob with reaction. “Lavon.” A little boy, even younger than her, groaned and rolled over, revealing a long, shallow cut in his forehead that turned his face into a ghastly mask of blood. “They’re gone,” the girl said. She looked up at Bruce, her eyes shining and wary at the same time. “Can you help him?”

Bruce knelt by the boy. “Are you Lavon?” he asked in a soothing voice. The boy nodded, his eyes wide. “Well, let’s get the bleeding stopped, Lavon.” He ripped a strip off of his shirt, grimacing at its filthiness. It would have to do.

“I’m Leah,” said the girl, crouching down next to him.

Bruce pressed the cloth to the wound. “Tony,” he said, using his middle name as he had before.

“Will he be okay?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Head wounds bleed a lot. It’s not a bad cut, though.”

He felt a light touch to the side of his own head and looked over. Leah was staring at her fingers. “You’re hurt too,” she said.

“It’s nothing.” Her breath was still coming hard and painful. “You were very brave,” he said.

“He’s my brother,” she said simply.

He nodded. “It would be better if we could get somewhere else,” he said. “Have you got somewhere safer to go?”

Dark, liquid eyes met his, assessing. She looked down at her red-smudged fingers again. “Sure. You can come home with us.”

“Home” turned out to be an underpass with a ragged assortment of tarps huddled beneath it. Firelight glimmered fitfully in the gathering gloom. A smell of roasting meat floated through the night and Bruce’s stomach growled loudly. Leah and Lavon both giggled.

“Smells like Honor got us some dinner,” Leah said. She raised her voice. “Honor, honey, we got a guest.”

“What’s that?” The ragged trio came around the corner of a tarp to find a group of people around a small fire. A man wearing a knit cap was turning a spit. He started to smile when he saw Leah, but his expression shifted to alarm when he caught sight of her brother. “God, what happened to you?”

“Some sharks beaned Lavon with a rock. We’d have been goners, but Tony here helped us.” She gestured at Bruce. “He got hurt too. I told him he could come home with us.”

“Come on and sit by the fire, then.” Honor gestured and the circle of people opened up. Someone found a fairly clean cloth and changed the dressing on Lavon’s forehead, another handed Leah a tin cup. She drank thirstily. “We got enough for one more tonight,” Honor said, turning the spit again.

Bruce hadn’t said anything because he was staring at the spit and the small, bubbling carcass on it. For a terrifying moment he thought it was a puppy or a kitten, but then he felt a gust of relief when he realized it was a large rat. A bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to tear loose in his chest: six months ago he’d been walking the greens of Oxford University, and tonight he was relieved to be eating rat!

His stomach growled again and he sat down, realizing that someone in the circle had just thanked him. “Leah did a lot of the fighting,” he said. “I think really she’s the reason they ran away.” Appreciative laughter rippled through the dark.

Honor lifted the spit from the fire. “Give it a couple of minutes to cool and then we’ll have ourselves a welcome-home feast,” he said with a wry twist to his mouth.

Bruce cast a glance to the uptown skyline, where the lights of Wayne Tower gleamed warmly, a million miles away. Beyond them was Wayne Manor.

Clark.

Bruce pulled his thoughts away from his friend with an effort. He had already learned this winter that to dwell on thoughts of friendship and laughter, to dream of warmth, was to risk madness. He remembered the desperation in Victor Fries’s voice, his wild terror at the thought of losing Nora, his willingness to sacrifice everything for the person he cared for.

Dangerous thoughts.

Better to stay in the present, focus on staying alive. The past and the future were both closed boxes, sealed tightly away in his heart. No dreams, no hopes, no plans. Just survival.

Bruce resolutely turned to his dinner of rat under an overpass.

But he touched the bronze compass, warm against his heart, one last time before he did.

**: : :**

“Are you even listening to me, Clark?”

Clark tore his gaze from the flowering plums lining the road to focus on the driver of the car. Roxanne Sutton shook her head, smoothing back flame-red hair that matched her new convertible. She’d gotten her driver’s license a week ago and celebrated by making her father buy her the flashiest, fastest sports car on the market. Typical Roxy.

“Of course I’m listening, Roxy,” Clark said, casting his mind back hastily. “You were talking about Matt again.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I hear that unspoken ‘as usual,’ you know.”

“Eyes on the road,” Clark said absently as they whirled around a curve.

“You’re happy for me you and you know it, silly boy. It was just lucky for me you stood me up that night, or I never would have met him. We’re going to go to Hollywood,” Roxy said, her smile blinding. “He’ll be a leading man, I’ll do stunts--can’t you see it? ‘Matt Hagan and Roxy Rocket’ up in lights,” she said, sketching a matinee with her hands in the air.

“Both hands on the wheel, Roxy,” said Clark. “It sounds really exciting.”

“Clark,” Roxy said, her voice suddenly tentative, “I’m not talking about some pipe dream. Matt’s got offers already. They’ve seen his theater work and they like him. We’re...definitely going.”

Clark frowned. “After graduation next year, you mean.”

“No, sweetie,” said Roxy. “I mean, we’re going. Next month. You don’t need a high school diploma in Hollywood if you’ve got talent.”

Clark found he didn’t know what to say. Roxy was the only thing like a friend he had in Gotham now. He stared at the road speechlessly, and after a moment, she reached out and touched his shoulder lightly with one hand.

“Clark...”

He pulled himself together and smiled at her. “It sounds really exciting, Roxy! You’ll have to send me a postcard!”

Roxy laughed, just a bit wistfully. “That’s why you’ve always liked me, Clarkie--the second-hand excitement. You’re as much as adventure junkie as I am under that nerdy exterior. Don’t you think it’s time you sought out some thrills of your own instead of living them through someone else?”

Clark frowned, feeling stung. The Manor was so quiet without Bruce around, and his boredom was like a gaping wound that he didn’t want touched by Roxy’s light laughter. “There’s more to life than excitement, Roxanne,” he huffed, feeling at that moment quite mature and adult.

She threw back her head and laughed with her whole body, raucously, the deep belly laugh that had first drawn him to talk to her. “That’s bull and you know it, Kent!” She whacked the steering wheel with a fist. “No, Roxy Rocket was born to _fly_ , boy, and by hell or high water I’m gonna!” She pulled into the Manor drive a little too fast and Clark winced, hoping Alfred or his mother hadn’t seen their entrance. “We’re not meant to be tied down, folks like you and me. You need to fly too, Clark,” she said.

Clark smiled to himself. “I will. I promise.”

The car coasted to a smooth stop in front of the Manor. Roxy glanced at her watch. “Gotta run, I’m meeting Matt in ten minutes.”

“Somewhere close by, I hope,” Clark said, opening the door.

Roxy just grinned. “What would be the fun in that?” As Clark started to leave, she reached out and grabbed his arm. “Clark,” she said, then hesitated. She opened her mouth again, then suddenly leaned forward and kissed him.

Her lips were warm and surprisingly gentle. Clark remembered Bruce’s mouth opening to him, the feel of his hands in Clark’s hair, rough and demanding. He felt a surge of desperate, mad desire, the memory was so strong, so real. _Bruce,_ he thought, the name aching in his mind as if he had groaned it aloud, fire and ice racing along his nerve endings at the memory.

Roxy was pulling away, just a ghost of a smile haunting her mouth. “Talk about adventure,” she murmured. “Now go on, you,” she added, pushing at his shoulder.

Clark found himself on the Manor steps as Roxy’s car roared away, his thoughts still a jumbled mix of lust and despair and a sort of bitter irony. Roxy had kissed him and all he’d been able to think of was Bruce. He was, as a matter of fact, still thinking of him: his strong lean body, his husky voice. He remembered the way Bruce had said his name while pretending to be Roxy, low and fierce. Just pretending, but Clark could hear it again and again.

The gardens were burgeoning with swelling pink buds, tulips ready to burst into riotous color, taunting him as he went home in a daze. His mother was out shopping, the bungalow was quiet. Clark grabbed a book and lay down on the bed, but the words before his eyes were nonsense and the book slipped away. Bruce was gone, Clark didn’t even know where he was, and he wanted to see him so much, wanted to touch him and hear him say his name...say his name like _that_ again when Clark touched him like _this_... He wanted to say Bruce’s name when Bruce touched him, slow and demanding and teasing, like--like _this_ \--

He bit the side of his free hand fiercely, but couldn’t stifle the sound of his own voice saying Bruce’s name over and over.

Slightly later, as he caught his breath, it occurred to him that he might possibly be gay.

The thought might have horrified him a few years ago, but compared to being an alien from an unknown planet, it was hardly the most shocking revelation of his life.

**: : :**

He was weeding the rose garden about an hour later, his emotions still roiling in a dozen different directions. Roxy was leaving soon. Bruce was gone. Clark was alone again. Roxy had kissed him. Clark had--

Clark was--

He wanted to kiss his _best friend._ Wanted to do a lot more than kiss him. But he was Bruce’s _friend._ Bruce was gone, and he wasn’t interested in Clark _that way_ , but it wasn’t any good pretending these feelings weren’t real either. He dug viciously at the stubborn weeds, as if they were thoughts he could root out of his mind instead of the ground. Roxy was leaving him and going to Hollywood, Bruce was gone and Clark didn’t even know _where_ , and Clark was stuck here in this garden, he was _never_ going to go anywhere or do _anything_ \--

He stared in chagrin at the plant he’d just torn from the ground: one of his mother’s best roses, of course. Gingerly, he patted it back into the earth, wincing. He took a deep breath, letting the anger and frustration flow through him, past him, listening to a meadowlark warbling in the field nearby. He could hear the chicks in her eggs stirring against the shells, almost ready to hatch. Another breath: he relaxed more and could hear a whale singing far off the coast, its yearning keen a counterpoint to the meadowlark's melody. The soil under his fingers teemed with life: mites scurrying, nematodes undulating, bacteria with their flagella flailing in rhythm with the distant whale's song. All connected.

He was learning to control and use his powers more every day. He could do delicate laser work with his eyes, could apply precise pressure with his fingers. He could move fast enough through the house that he was no more than a breeze on his mother's cheek.

And when he found a new and frightening power--when, for example, he discovered he could freeze water with a breath--he would remember Bruce's voice telling him he could never be a monster, and set about learning what he could do with the new ability.

_“--think he’s here right now?”_

Clark’s head snapped up at the low murmur, a boy’s voice.

 _”I can’t believe it,_ ” said another voice, a different boy. _”Not just **him** , but we’re right on top of--”_

 _“--Shhh,”_ hissed a girl as Clark scrambled to his feet. _”No one knows about that yet._ ”

Clark ran toward the intruders’ voices, dodging around the corner of the house and into the moon garden. Rounding a corner, he heard a gasp and stopped dead.

In front of him were three teens about his age, dressed in outlandish, bright clothes like nothing Clark had seen before. No, that wasn’t quite true, he realized. The cut and color...they reminded him of the costume his mother had made for him. The teens were staring at him in wonder, something like awe in their eyes.

All three of them were hovering in the air slightly.

Clark felt a rush of emotion grip him, too strong to be excitement, too solid to be fear. Like the instant before careening down a waterfall, before the current snatches you away from everything known and into the unknown, turbulent future.

“Clark Kent,” said the girl, her eyes shining. “We’re the Legion of Superheroes, from the thirty-first century, come here to ask you...”

She held out her hand, beckoning.

“Are you ready for an adventure?”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fire and Ice [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8550943) by [Mithen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen), [thirdlotusprince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirdlotusprince/pseuds/thirdlotusprince)




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